


Bonds and Ties

by hyuniebaby



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Talks about clans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28088580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyuniebaby/pseuds/hyuniebaby
Summary: You are very capable and skilled, but you aren’t officially a ninja, mainly because you never stayed at a village longer than a week. Your father is a traveling merchant — a civilian. You and your family move from village to village selling specialty products from various lands and nations so there wasn’t really a chance for you to become a ninja. You help your father sell products during the day while you train with your mother by night.Your mother insisted it was imperative that you learn the ninja way, claiming that you were an important figure and that you were destined for greatness. You weren’t really sure what she meant by that but you liked the strain you occasionally feel when you trained as well as the thrill that courses through your body when you learn a new jutsu. It was fun.It was fun until it wasn't and you and your mother were needed back in Konoha, a place where you've never even been to despite all your travels.What happens next?
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji & Original Female Character(s), Hyuuga Neji/Original Character(s), Hyuuga Neji/Original Female Character(s), Hyuuga Neji/Reader, Uchiha Sasuke & Original Character(s), Uchiha Sasuke & Original Female Character(s), Uchiha Sasuke & Reader, Uchiha Sasuke/Original Character(s), Uchiha Sasuke/Original Female Character(s), Uchiha Sasuke/Reader
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s an introduction to the current fic I’m working on. I wanted to introduce the main character first before she goes to Konoha. Please let me know what you all think of it. 😅 I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. ❤️

You’re nervous. You could feel your heart pounding in your chest. You take a deep breath to calm yourself, although the action didn’t exactly help you. But you had no choice, you’re going to have to learn how to precisely sense your enemy sooner or later. “ _Better sooner rather than later_ ,” your mother, Kana, stressed.

In theory, when your mother told you about it, it sounded pretty simple. But you should’ve known nothing was ever that simple with her, because she insisted you trained your sensory skills by putting a blindfold on you while she attacks you.

This wasn’t the first time she put on a blindfold on you, in fact, it had already been a couple of weeks since she started this training method for you, however, the nerves you felt never seemed to go away. It was scary to lose your sense of sight, after all.

After another deep breath, you focus on sensing your surroundings, trying to feel even the slightest hint of your mother’s chakra. The task was extremely hard considering she was moving so fast, making it harder for you to precisely pinpoint her location. You listen to the leaves, in hopes that the rustling sound will help you in determining where she was.

“You're doing it again,” Kana tsks. You immediately face her direction tracing it from the sound of her voice, but you remain in your place, knowing well enough that this doesn’t count as “sensing” her location. “Stop trying to use your sense of hearing. Some shinobis, say the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, are well versed in silent killing. If you rely on your sense of sound _and_ sight, instead of kneading your chakra to sense them, then it’ll be over for you.”

You nod, realizing your mistake. You go back to your defensive stance and focus on detecting her again. That’s when you felt her on your right side speeding towards you, you immediately jumped to avoid her attack, or at least you _tried_ to. Unfortunately you weren’t fast enough, resulting in her landing a kick on your face ultimately making you land on your butt.

You instantly got up. It was hard enough to sense someone’s chakra but changing from sensory mode to fighting mode was tremendously harder. But you were determined to master this.

“You’re getting better.” Your mother says.

“I was a second late to dodge your attack though.”

“That’s understandable, it’s only been a couple of weeks since we trained like this, but your progress is remarkable. Even I took a much longer time to achieve what you’re capable of doing now.”

You nod but you weren’t exactly convinced that you were getting better. You need to be faster, you have to work harder — for what? You weren’t sure. It’s not like you were a genin nor a shinobi for that matter.

Although you were very capable and skilled, you aren’t officially a ninja, mainly because you never stayed at a village longer than a week. Your father is a traveling merchant — a civilian. You and your family move from village to village selling specialty products from various lands and nations so there wasn’t really a chance for you to become a ninja. You help your father sell products during the day while you train with your mother by night.

She insisted it was imperative that you learn the ninja way, claiming that you were an important figure and that you were destined for greatness. You weren’t really sure what she meant by that but you liked the strain you occasionally feel when you trained as well as the thrill that courses through your body when you learn a new jutsu. It was fun.

You feel your mother’s chakra again, she was a few meters away from you. You turn your body to face her but jump back. You threw shurikens at her direction. You weren’t sure if it hit her but you were sure you threw the tools exactly at the location you sensed her.

Now that you could sense where she was, it was your turn to attack, otherwise, you’ll be forced to go on the defensive longer, eventually leading to a loss if your chakra gets drained from using it too much.

You pressed your hands together, “Water Style: Water Shock wave,” you say.

You direct the water to your mother’s direction, willing it to be as wide as possible so that the probability of her being hit or consumed by the water was higher despite your lack of vision. You hear a puff of smoke after, knowing already that it was a shadow clone that you hit.

“Alright. That’ll be all for tonight. You did an amazing job, Michiko,” your mother called behind you. She was the only one who called you Michiko, otherwise, you were called Y/N.

You sigh defeatedly and remove your blindfold. “This is so hard,” you say, dejected.

“The fact that you were able to attack while you were in sensory mode meant that you’re mastering the technique,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure if you didn’t have a blindfold on, you could have easily taken me down, so don’t be sad.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Your shurikens actually almost hit my shadow clone. In fact, it grazed the clone’s shirt,” she says impressed. “And the way you used the Water Shock wave jutsu was commendable. If you focused it on one spot, it could be dodged easily. It only works if you could see where your opponent goes and point it towards them. However, since your vision is impaired, the more area you cover, the more likely it will hit them.”

She pats your head. You smile at her words.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

You nod, smile still present on your face. She reaches for your hand and leads you back to the village after training in the woods.

As you walk towards the inn you were staying at, you asked. “Why do I have to train blindfolded while on a battle? Is the probability of being blinded on a mission really that high?” You ask naively. You know about how missions work in theory but you really didn’t have any idea what happens in between receiving the mission and accomplishing it. 

“Well, no.” _Huh? If it wasn’t really going to happen, then why train like that?_

“However,” your mother continues, “the Uchiha clan have the Sharingan, and it has the power to cast genjutsu if you looked into their eyes. If you’re alone with no comrades to help you and you get stuck on the genjutsu, then it might as well be over for you.”

“Uchiha? Who are they and why should I fight them?” You’ve only heard of the Kages, the ones who lead the hidden villages. Other than them, you had no idea who were who. You don’t even know your mother’s side of the family, you don’t know whether she belongs to a clan or not. She doesn’t want to tell you yet. 

You could immediately see the distaste on your mother’s face at the mention of the Uchiha.

“They’re a powerful clan. One of the strongest in Konoha, maybe even in the entire shinobi world because of their Sharingan and their natural battle prowess. The _Curse of Hatred_ was common in the clan. You see, they have powerful emotions. They’re extremely devoted people. So when they lose the object of their affection, they’re quickly overpowered by hatred. With that being said, they could easily become evil, most of them are.”

She said the last phrase as if it was set in stone. She must really hate the Uchihas.

“Anyway, there’s only two remaining living Uchihas. I heard one joined the Akatsuki and the other left the village in search of power. I’m pretty sure evil has consumed the two.”

You stopped listening to the words your mother said after that. She was the type to criticize harshly when she doesn’t like something or someone and sometimes, in her head, facts were distorted because of that hatred or dislike. Although you didn’t want to be rude, it was easier to tune out her rant about how the Uchihas were evil. After all, you believed that everyone was inherently good and that their bad actions were because of a momentary lapse in judgment.

You focused back on what you’ve heard. Akatsuki? Leaving the village for power? It made you frown. You heard about the dirty work the Akatsuki members do from the gossip in the villages. You also know that leaving the village and abandoning your duties as a shinobi meant becoming branded as a rogue ninja, ultimately being considered as a criminal. They must’ve experienced great horrors for them to decide to do such grave things. You naturally felt bad for them. They had such a cruel fate that no one deserved.

“...someday you might come across them and if you do, you should be prepared.”

You just nod your head in obedience, although you really had no intention of fighting with someone you barely knew. But you’re sure you’d do it if they meant harm to your family.

When you both arrived at the inn you were staying at, you immediately went to shower. However, you felt something was off. There was no one watching you, you were sure of that because you don’t sense chakra near your location aside from your mother’s. Besides, if there was someone, you were sure your mother would alert you immediately. But there was just something that was different somehow and it made you feel anxious.

Your mother was quick to notice your sudden change in attitude so she asked you how you were feeling. You tell her you felt like something bad was going to happen. She quickly reassures you that everything’s going to be fine. You mask your anxiousness and give her a smile to stop her from worrying about your state. When she’s sure you were okay, she bids you good night.

You laid on your bed, tossing and turning the whole night, unable to get proper rest. Eventually though, you fell asleep just as the sun was about to shine.

You only get a few hours of sleep when your body wakes you up. The sun has risen already and it was time to start the day.

“Where’s Papa?”

Your mother pauses from packing her clothes. Your father was indeed supposed to go back to the inn last night. He went off to the Land of Hot Water to pick up something he left. The place wasn’t even that far from where you were staying at so he should have been home yesterday. Although he was a grown man, he was a civilian and no civilian could match a rogue ninja so it was natural for you to worry about him.

“I’ll come look for him,” your mother says.

“I’ll come with you!”

She nods, not wanting to leave you behind as well.

The next series of events went by on a blur since then. All you could remember was that you froze on the spot when you saw people were congregated somewhere along the way back to the Land of Hot Water and with your sharp hearing skills, you could hear their terror as they talked about someone who got killed. How this man was the fourth man to be killed this week alone. You haven’t even seen the dead person but you sure felt anxious.

You watched as your mother immediately went to see the commotion and the next thing you knew she was on her knees crying and cradling your father’s body. Watching your mother wail made you feel numb. Suddenly, you can’t even hear a single thing. You were afraid you even forgot how to breathe. Your vision then became blurry. You weren’t even sure if it was because of the tears or because of the lack of oxygen. Either way, the next thing you saw was your mother mouthing you something and then you passed out.

When you came to be, you weren’t on the road to the Land of Hot Water. You were disoriented and when you got up, your mother was quick to go by your side. The puffiness of your mother’s eyes meant that it wasn’t a dream.

You looked around and realized you were back at the inn you slept at last night. Another man was in the room. He was an old man with spiky, waist-length white hair. There were red lines under his eyes that extended to his chin.

“How are you feeling now baby?” Your mother asks.

You looked at her sadly and didn’t answer. “A shinobi must never show emotion” was all you could hear at the back of your mind.

You break your eye contact with your mother and look at the man in the room. Right now you didn’t want to deal with the idea of losing your father. You were never good with feelings to begin with.

“Who is he?”

“I’m glad you asked!” The old man exclaims, trying to lighten the mood ~~or was he just unable to read the mood?~~ “I am the Hermit of Mount Myoboku. The wise and immortal spirit. That’s right! It is I, the Toad Mountain Sage!”

You look at him weirdly while you can hear your mother starting to softly giggle in the background. The old man was weird but at least he made your mother’s mood a little better.

“Michiko, darling, this is Jiraiya. He’s from Konoha. He’s a decade older than me but we used to be acquainted back in the days. He, uh, helped bury your father and carry you back here.”

You nod your head at your mother. Then you stand up to greet Jiraiya properly. You faced him and bowed to him, “I am Michiko but you can call me Y/N, thank you for your help.”

He ruffles your hair and laughs, “It’s no problem! Kana, your daughter here has such good manners unlike some people her age.”

He starts talking about some boy named Naruto with a brief mention of his parents you haven’t heard of. You drowned out their talk about Konoha, not wanting to listen to anything in particular after discovering the death of your father. You quickly excused yourself and went out of the inn to get some fresh air.

Your mind was a mess so you haven’t been paying attention to where you were going. The next thing you knew, you were back in the woods where you and your mother trained last night.

You weren’t even thinking. You feel like your body started moving on its own. Your hands were suddenly doing hand signs. Boar. Dog. Ram. At this point it was all muscle memory. “Water Style: Ripping Torrent.” 

Water starts spiraling on your hand and you point it towards a tree. It was strong enough to take down the tree. You can’t even find it in yourself to be happy at the feat. In the past, whenever you used that jutsu, it wasn’t powerful enough to cut a tree but now, you manage to do it quickly and efficiently. You do it a couple more times, letting the chakra flow through you.

You were staring at the ground when you found your hands quickly doing another set of hand signs. You’ve always been praised by your mother for your speed but you always thought you could do better. Right now it feels like this was the quickest time you’ve done these hand signs.

However, you’re still in a trance. All you know is that you wanted to let off some tension. You wanted to cry just like a normal person would do at a time like this, you really do, but you can’t find it in yourself to do so. You weren’t feeling pain or sadness, just feeling hollow and empty. You needed an outlet. _What better (worse) way to do that than to run your body dry of chakra?_

“Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu.”

A large water dragon emerged then, your initial plan was to have it attack some trees near you but then you felt the presence of another person’s chakra. So instead, you pointed towards the tree where the person was hiding and attacked it.

Normally, you wouldn’t attack someone so violently, however, today you felt far from your normal self. You don’t even know if you’re thinking straight. Right now it feels like you’re on autopilot mode.

The person behind the tree was Jiraiya. He swiftly moved out of the way and a ball of chakra formed in his hand as the water dragon headed towards him again. “Rasengan!”

The move had completely destroyed the water dragon.

You weren’t sure what was happening. _Sure, it had been you who first attacked, but why was he attacking back?_

You had no time to mull over it. “ _Hesitation is death_ ,” you could hear your mother’s voice when she taught you the rules of the shinobi. Slowly you feel like you’re snapping back, gaining control over your body once again.

You tried reaching out for shurikens but remembered you didn’t bring your ninja tools because you didn’t plan on training at all this time or even having a fight with someone. So you did the first thing that came out of your mind, “Wind Style: Blade of Wind.”

A sharp disc made of the wind materializes on your hands and you throw them in Jiraiya's direction. His hair then wraps around him and hardens, effectively defending himself from your attack.

You quickly use substitution to escape and observe what happens next. You hide behind a tree and await his next move.

Jiraiya then shoots hardened hair needles in the direction of your replacement. Your replacement quickly moves to dodge all the attacks. You breathe in deeply, thinking what your next move should be. That’s when you sense the presence of two more people hiding on top of a tree somewhere a little bit further away. You recognized that the chakra of one of them was from your mother. You breathe in relief knowing she was alive but you weren’t sure if she’s being held hostage by this Jiraiya guy so you decide to check.

You make three shadow clones. Two to continue fighting with Jiraiya, while you and the other one silently went to the location where you sensed the chakras.

When you got nearer to the location you sensed the chakra, you suppressed your chakra. That’s when you saw Jiraiya, which meant one was a Shadow Clone and you weren’t sure if it was the one in front of you now or the other one who was fighting against your two clones.

He was leaning on a tree facing the area where your clones were fighting off another Jiraiya. _Was he merely observing you?_

Your mother was somewhere a little further. You nodded to your clone and pointed to the location of your mother. It was quick to leave your side. You, on the other hand, will have to face this other Jiraiya. Behind some random tree, you mark the place with your jutsu formula. When you’re done, it’s time to attack.

“Earth Release: Rock Pillar Spears.”

Jiraiya was caught off guard and attained a cut on his arm. Fortunately for him, he was able to jump out of the way before he got completely impaled. You speedily charged at him. Despite his age, he was able to dodge all your punches and kicks.

He was able to grab your hand when you tried to punch him and he threw your body to the ground. You grunted at the pain but you got up as fast as he threw you.

You charged again, intent on at least landing a blow on his body. It was obvious with the way that he was moving that he was skilled and had lots of experiences in fighting. Your eyes widened as you saw him about to punch you in the gut. That’s when you teleport back to the tree you marked. _That was so close._

“What? Flying Raijin Technique?” Jiraiya was stunned.

“Earth Release: Rock Pillar Spears.” It was lucky he already knew the jutsu and quickly jumped out of the way.

You smirked. While he was in the air, you quickly did the hand sign for your next jutsu as you observed where he’ll land. Once you were sure where, you muttered, “Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld.”

The jutsu effectively immobilized him but you weren’t able to completely sink him because you used too much chakra already.

As a last resort, “Water Style: Ripping Torrent.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” your mother says.

Water quickly dissipates as you lose your focus. “Huh?”

Then you hear Jiraiya laughing behind your mother. “Your daughter is truly amazing! I was shocked when she was able to use the Water Dragon when there’s no body of water nearby. It’s a feat not everyone can do.”

You whipped your head towards the sound of his voice. _How did he get out of the swamp?_

As if hearing your internal conflict, he says, “That was a shadow clone.”

“What’s happening?” You ask, still unsure about the whole situation.

“Well, Kana here kept bragging about how you’re an exceptional ninja, how fast you are, how she trained you well and all that. You see this nugget here hated training when we were younger and her patience was so thin so of course I wouldn’t believe her! But surprisingly, she was right about what she said.”

You blushed at the compliment. “Th-thank you. I’m sorry for the cut. Please let me make it up for you,” you quietly approached him to heal his wound.

Your mother smirks. “Oh, I forgot to mention she knows medical ninjutsu too.”

Jiraiya chuckles. “Why am I not surprised? You learned from Tsunade after all,” he replies to your mother. “She would’ve been disappointed if you didn’t pass it down to your daughter.”

“And _that_ move,” Jiraiya faces your mother, referring to the Swamp of the Underworld jutsu, “you sly fox, you taught her the jutsu _I_ taught you. Imagine if it wasn’t a clone, I would’ve died because of my own jutsu.”

She just shrugs. You can almost hear her say, _“It is what it is.”_

When you’re done healing his wound, he thanks you. “I’ll have to go now. I left my student at the Land of Hot Water because I heard about the _incident_. I think I’ve been gone too long. Who knows what trouble that brat is going to do?” He sighs. “Anyway, think about what I’ve told you, Kana. Naruto and I will be coming back to Konoha soon. I’ll let Tsunade know about _this_.”

Your mother nods mutely and bids him farewell. You do the same.

As you split up with Jiraiya, you wanted to ask your mother what they talked about but she was zoning out. The day’s event must be catching up with her. You kept your mouth shut, the question can wait anyway. Besides, you were tired too from using up too much chakra than normal, more so because you did the Flying Raijin Jutsu, which always takes too much chakra from you. You make a mental note to train harder, especially when it comes to that technique.

__________________________________

Two weeks passed by in a blur. Your mother and you haven’t left the Hidden Frost Village since your father’s death. You haven’t been training with your mother too. You understood why she was acting the way she was so you let her be. Unlike you, who used the previous fight with Jiraiya as an outlet to let off your steam and sadness, your mother had been keeping it all bottled up.

She was acting the same, minus the lack of training, but otherwise she was normal. And that worried you. She lost her husband, your father, but she hasn’t cried after that time she saw your father’s body.

In the first few days you were always right beside her, helping her in anyway you can. But she was quick to scold you, telling you that she wasn’t handicapped and that she could do things by herself. You knew she was right, you did act overbearing, you couldn’t help but worry though. Eventually, you let her be, albeit reluctantly. 

You’ve previously learned about her life as an ANBU squad leader. She told you that there were different ninja ranks — students at the Academy, Genin, Chunin, Jonin, and then there were exceptional shinobis with special skills that were scouted into ANBU. She explained to you how there was a lot of darkness in the missions they got assigned to so it wasn’t exactly for everyone. _Maybe the lack of reaction was because of it…_

You were lost in your thoughts as you were setting up your father’s stall. You and Kana had decided to sell off every single product your father was selling before going elsewhere. By now, there were only a handful of items which meant you were about to leave this village — to where? You didn’t know yet. Your mother hasn’t decided.

Your thoughts were cut off when a shadow loomed over you. You shifted your vision to the man standing before you. You plastered a smile. “Good morning, Sir. How may I help you?” A generic line you used when there were customers.

 _A shinobi from Konoha. A male masked man with silver hair with his one eye covered_ , you observed.

“Excuse me, have you seen Kana? Taketori Kana?” The silver haired man asked.

You were caught off guard by the question. No one has ever looked for your mother, ever. Let alone shinobi. And she told you she has never introduced herself as Kana since she left the village. She goes by the name Maya as a civilian.

You looked at him seriously but still kept the smile on your face. “ _Trust no one_ ” echoes in your head. You subtly shift your stance, ready to run or to fight if the situation calls for it.

The male observed you, you could almost see the gears turning in his mind.

“Are you Michiko?” 

You drop your smile.

You gave him a piercing stare. You’ve lived as a civilian long enough to know how to act as one. And it was quite obvious this wasn’t how you usually acted. You have recently lost your father so you were being overprotective and cautious. You still don’t know who killed him and why, and the fact that this ninja knows who you are is suspicious to you.

The man notices your hostility so he raises his two hands in surrender while he tries to explain why they’re here. “I’m from Konoha. I’m Kakashi. I’ve been sent on a mission by the Hokage to come and get you and your mother. I was told that your mother was informed already.” 

_Trust no one._

For some reason the thought of being taken away makes you mad. You clench your fists, unconsciously there were small sparks of electricity gathering in your palms, barely noticeable if you weren’t looking closely. But you notice the silver haired man shift his eyes momentarily to look at your hands. 

“Michiko!” The sound coming from your mother. She comes by your side and you immediately calm down. The sparks were gone in that instant. And you hear the man release a breath of relief.

“Kana sensei.” Kakashi says, his hand coming up to wave and his eyes crinkling as he smiles.

“Hatake? Kakashi? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Wow! You grew up so well! It’s been so long since I last saw you!” Your mother perks up. She welcomes him with such enthusiasm as compared to yours, much to his relief.

You’re left with a confused look on your face.

“Come on. Let’s talk somewhere else.” Your mother says as she leads your group back to the inn.

When you all have settled down and have seated on a table, your mother was the first to speak up. “Kakashi, this is Michiko, my daughter.”

“Please call me Y/N,” you interrupt.

Your mother turns to you. “I was his squad leader when he got into ANBU”, she explains. 

You nod at your mother. They must be acquainted, you thought. “Why are you here?” You question the man, you’ve been dying to know why someone from the Leaf wants you and your mother to go there.

“A lot has happened after Kana sensei left the village. The Fourth Hokage died saving the village when the Nine Tailed Fox attacked just a few weeks after she left. He sealed half of it into himself and half of it into…” He coughs, “Naruto.”

 _Naruto is the boy Jiraiya was training_ , you think back to when you’ve heard the name.

“The Third Hokage assumed the role of the Hokage after that. Orochimaru defected and attacked the village a few years ago and… the Third Hokage died along with shinobis who risked their lives saving the village…” He then looks up at your mother, “Lady Tsunade was then given the role of the Fifth Hokage.”

She nods in understanding. “Guess Jiraiya forgot to tell me about those things when we saw each other,” your mother mumbled, distraught over the tragic things that happened to the village.

“But why are you here?” You pressed. He didn’t really answer your question.

“The Fifth Hokage sent me on a mission to take you and your mother back to Konoha.”

“She moves fast. It’s only been what? A few weeks? Since I saw Jiraiya and she has already been informed.” She notes. “And that’s nice of her to send someone familiar.”

“But _why_?” You continue to ask.

“The village is still recovering from the attack and we’ve lost a lot of comrades. We’re short of ninjas.”

You raised your right eyebrow and crossed your arms, “Why only now though?” If they needed more ninjas, then they should’ve tried finding your mother sooner.

“We’ve only recently found out your location.” He says simply. But there was something that just doesn’t seem right to you.

“And if we refuse to go with you?” You ask. Your mother subtly grips your hand below the table. A warning. Don’t be rude.

He sighs. “We have information on who might’ve killed your father.”

Now that gets you and your mother’s attention.


	2. Going to Konoha

You aren’t really the revenge type. You’ve always lived by forgiving and forgetting because you believed that people are inherently good. But maybe you’re far too young to understand how the world works. You have never seen how cruel the world could be firsthand. Your mother doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be happy about that or not.

“We have information on who might’ve killed your father.” This gets your attention and your mother’s.

To be able to put your mind and heart at ease, you just had to know who it was and _why_ they did it. Your next course of action will depend on those. It came natural to you to think before doing anything and the only time you slipped was that day you found out your father died.

Your mother, on the other hand, won’t stop until she gets her justice. It has always been what she stands for. Your father had always been worried about this trait of hers, he thinks it’ll get her in trouble someday. But you weren’t worried, you know she wouldn’t do something stupid. Something unpredictable maybe, but not stupid. That’s why she was a squad leader in ANBU after all.

You hear your mother’s breath hitch. “Who?”

“It’s Konoha’s business and we can’t really tell you about it unless we know you’ll cooperate…” It made sense, logically speaking, if they had plans to subdue the killer, then they had to make sure you both weren’t going to ruin their plans. Most especially your mother.

“Fine.” You say. “When do we leave?” You didn’t even want to put up a fight. You just wanted to know and get over it.

Kakashi was surprised by your response but he doesn’t show it. Your personality came off strong and hostile to him that he was actually expecting a little more resistance from you and a lot more persuasion on his side. In fact, he had already planned what to respond in case you disagreed and demanded to know immediately. _Maybe he was wrong about you._

Kakashi looks over from you to your mother. The choice was up to her now. “Sensei?”

“Can we… Can we head out now?”

You both nod at her. You understand why she wanted to head to Konoha as soon as possible. The _need_ to know weighed heavily in your minds.

You were all done preparing in no time, and started the two-day journey back to Konoha. The beginning of the journey was silent, just walking at a normal pace. Without warning, your mother speeds off, jumping from branches to branches, “Can’t we go faster?” She asks as if she wasn’t speeding off already.

Kakashi looks over to you and you just shrug. Without hesitation, you sprint to catch up with your mother, Kakashi trailing behind you. 

When the night comes, you all set up your sleeping gears. Kakashi offers to keep watch first.

You pretend to sleep until you could hear your mother snore. You’re awfully guilty for being so hostile with the man, it just wasn’t like you. When you were sure she was asleep, you got up.

“Excuse me.”

Kakashi turns his head to you. He keeps silent which urges you to talk.

“I just — I just want to apologize for how I acted earlier. I was rude and I shouldn’t have been when you didn’t do anything wrong.” You bowed your head. “I’m just a little bit on edge lately with what happened, but that’s no excuse. I hope we get past this.”

It seems that Kakashi did judge you wrongly. You sounded mature for your age and so sincere. His eyes crinkle again as he smiles. His right hand goes to rub the back of his neck, “It’s fine, that’s no problem.”

You sigh in relief. “Thank you. Please let me know when you get tired, I’ll stay guard.”

He just nods.

You bowed your head again and smiled before settling down.

You slept for hours when he did exactly as you told and you took over watch. You stayed up, the next thing you knew, the sun was rising already and it was time to go.

All of you sprint off to head to Konoha. And you start to think of what your life would be there. W _hat would it be like to actually stay at a place permanently? How would it feel like to actually have a home?_ There were so many things running on your mind. But you always go back to the thought: what am I supposed to do now?

“Will I be a shinobi of the Leaf?” You suddenly ask no one in particular.

Your mother’s eyes soften, “Do you want to be?”

_It’s nice to have a choice._

“Yes.” You answer without missing a beat.

“I think you’ll be great shinobi.” Kakashi says.

The compliment warms your heart. “Will I have to attend the academy too?”

For a moment he didn't reply, he himself was unsure whether you should attend the academy or you would become a genin already. He rubs his neck and sheepishly says, “I’m not sure about the technicalities. I’m sure the Hokage will know what to do.”

You hum in response and the conversation is dropped. The journey back to Konoha becomes silent again. 

It was a couple of hours after that when you started sensing the presence of shinobis. Too many, not the usual three-man team that go on missions. There’s at least ten people at the location. Something was off, and you wanted to find out what it was.

So you abruptly changed your direction. “Oi where are you going?!” Kakashi asks while he and your mother follow you.

“I just want to take a look somewhere. I have a bad feeling about it.” You look into your mother’s eyes, she knows what you’re referring to.

“I’m surprised you could sense them at this distance.” She smiles.

“What are you talking about?” Kakashi asks. “The mission is to bring you back to Konoha _safely_. You shouldn’t be running into trouble!”

“Relax, Kakashi. We’ll just take a look and see what it is. We won’t do anything stupid. If there’s something wrong, we can always just retreat. You should trust me and Michiko.”

If it was only you who wanted to go, he might’ve been able to stop you but since your mother was insisting too, he knew there was no other choice but to concede. With a sigh, he follows the two of you.

You all stop near the location, close enough to observe but far enough so you don’t get dragged along the commotion.

There seemed to be three shinobis — two males and a female — fighting against ten others. “The three are from the Leaf,” your mother says while looking at their hitai-ate. Kakashi nods, changing his stance so he’d be ready to go down if the situation calls for it. They’re outnumbered and it was obvious they were struggling.

The female with long blond hair fell down hard from a kick to her head by one of their enemies. The enemies were approaching her with intent to land more blows but then the guy with black hair tied in a spiky ponytail threw shurikens at them but they quickly dodged it. This, however, gave the guy’s opponents an opening to attack.

You watch the movement of one of his opponents. Your eyes widened when you recognized his hand signs were for the Dragon Flame Bullet jutsu. There was no way he’d be able to dodge it in time!

Without thinking, you jumped out of the branch, praying that you’d be able to make it in time. You were still on the air as you started the hand seals for the Water Formation Wall jutsu. As you landed, a barrier of water was formed, just as the fire style user breathed fire from their mouth. _You made it!_

Your sudden arrival surprised everyone as you heard a collective yelp. In no time, Kakashi was beside you.

“Sorry,” you say to Kakashi while still maintaining the water wall. He just replies with a grunt.

“Kakashi sensei!” The blond girl exclaims.

“What are you doing here?” The male with the spiky ponytail asks while he was dodging blows from his opponents.

“Let’s talk about it later,” Kakashi replies while he eyes the opponents in front of him.

“Reinforcements, eh?” One of the attackers says. “Huh, it’s Kakashi of the Sharingan. This will be fun.”

You release the water wall you made and grab a kunai from your bag. The man who used the fire jutsu starts throwing shurikens at your direction. You block everything with your kunai except for one, which grazes your shoulder, leaving a cut on it.

When he stopped throwing shurikens, another opponent advances towards you. You easily dodge his punches and kicks with a few tilts of your body. When one of his kicks hit the ground, it cracks. _He’s focusing on power, that's why he’s slow,_ you thought.

You take out senbons from your bag, you rotate your wrist and start throwing them, aiming for his chakra points. He manages to dodge most of them, but some pierces through his lower body. He smirks, “This isn’t going to stop me.” He doesn’t even bother removing the needles.

He advances towards you again and then you notice the fire style user was creeping up on you from behind. You move out of the way, but the fire style user expected your move and shifted at the last second, landing a hard blow on your gut. It sends your body flying.

You grit your teeth from the pain and dig your heels to the ground to stop the momentum of your body. Your back softly crashes against the back of the other Leaf shinobi. He had long black hair and lavender eyes.

“Sorry,” you murmur. He just looks over his shoulder at you and then hums.

You move away from him and come towards your opponents. You particularly targeted the man you hit with senbons, but both of your opponents were attacking at the same time. You only dodge the attacks from the fire style user, not bothering to land him a blow and focusing on attacking the man with senbons.

You throw your punches to the man with senbons, he couldn’t jump out of the way fast enough because of it. You hit him hard on the face and he lands on his back with a groan.

You rotate your wrist again and throw senbons at him. He couldn’t stand after that.

With one man down, you focus on the fire style user. With a flick of your wrist, senbons are thrown at him, which he easily avoided. He was faster than the man you took down.

“Is that all you’ve got?” He taunts.

Just as he says those words, a loud thud followed by coughing sounds fill the air. You look over your shoulder for a second and confirm that the source was the blond girl. " _I’ll have to hurry up and finish my opponent so I could help her,_ " you thought. 

“Wind Style: Blade of Wind.” You throw a sharp disc made of wind over to his direction. It was practically invisible to the eye so he wasn’t able to dodge it at all. In an instant, he was down.

You speed off towards the girl and kick the assailants before they were able to get closer to her.

“Are you okay?” You ask.

She just coughs and groans, holding her stomach in pain.

It was a series of punching and kicking then. From the corner of your eye, you can see that Kakashi had already defeated his opponents and was helping the man with the spiky ponytail fight off his. The other Leaf shinobi with lavender eyes seemed to be holding off well on his own.

You were at it with the two assailants for minutes, and not one of you had landed a blow on each other. However, as time progresses, you notice them starting to tire down. You use this to your advantage.

You send them punch after punch, kick after kick, increasing your speed each time. Eventually, their defenses weakened. Then you focus your chakra on your hands and feet.

You punched the face of one man and kicked the gut of the other with all your might. This sent them flying. You made a quick work — grab senbon needles on your bag, rotate your wrist, and aim the needles at the two opponents, for good measure.

You quickly jumped to the girl’s location. “Are you okay?” You ask again, this time while focusing your chakra in healing her.

“Tha-thank y-you.”

You were doing quite well in your task when you suddenly felt an upsurge of chakra. _What was that?_

You snap your head to the direction. You find the male with lavender eyes finishing up one of his opponents and the other one was at a distance, amassing chakra. You clench your jaw. With that much chakra, whatever jutsu he’s planning on doing could be fatal.

“I’m sorry, but that’ll have to do for now,” you tell the blond kunoichi.

You watch as his opponent performs the Tiger hand seal. You mark your location, ready to jump in if needed be.

“Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!”

Your eyes widen as a huge dragon-shaped fireball appears. Without thinking twice, you jumped over the man with lavender eyes and held his hand. In a blink of an eye, you teleported to the location you marked.

“Are you alright?” You ask the guy as you pant. _Who knew teleporting with someone could use up so much chakra?_

He seemed to be a little dazed from the jutsu. “ _What was that? A space-time ninjutsu perhaps?_ ” He thought.

“Are you okay?” You ask again, worry etched in your face.

As he heard your voice, he snapped back into reality. He nods once, although he didn’t hear your question at all.

You sigh in relief but immediately put on a serious face after. You observe the user as his dragon fireball set aflame a group of trees. “That could’ve turned us into ashes,” you mumble. You try to think of what your next move should be.

Just in time, Kakashi and the other male Leaf shinobi make their way to your location. You momentarily glance at their previous location and find out that they have defeated the ninjas they were fighting off. _One opponent left._

Kakashi was standing in between you and the fire style user while the other Konoha ninja was helping the blond kunoichi stand.

What you didn’t notice, however, was that you were still holding the male with the lavender eye’s hand and that he was looking at your hands intertwined. And for whatever reason, you both don’t seem to want to let go.

Only when the last opponent — the other fire style user — charged towards the group’s direction did you let go. He throws shurikens at your direction and you ready yourself with a kunai. You knew he was doing it to buy more time for another attack.

The thing was, the shurikens never came. Instead, the shinobi with lavender eyes had deflected everything through a rotation of some sorts. Quite frankly, you have never seen anything like that before.

He thrusts his palm forward and generates a powerful air current which sends the opponent flying. However, before he even lands, he disappears with a puff.

“A shadow clone!” Kakashi says. “Don’t lower your guards.”

You close your eyes and focus on sensing the hiding ninja. You point towards the east at the same time as the boy with lavender eyes does. “There!”

You all face that direction. Everyone shifts their body to a defensive stance, except for you. You kept your eyes closed, focusing on kneading your chakra. This would probably be the last jutsu you’d be able to do. Anything more would drain you. 

You could sense your opponent had amassed chakra again, almost the same amount as his Fire Dragon. It must be his final move too. Since you were all gathered in one location, one swift move would do the trick.

“Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!”

You could feel the heat getting closer and closer. Everyone jumps out of the way but you remain on the spot.

Just like that fight with Jiraiya, your hands moved quickly.

“Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu.”

Your water dragon forms despite the lack of water surrounding you. 

At the same time, the dragons breathe out fire and water. He was able to gather more chakra than you were when he performed the jutsu so despite fire being weaker than water, he was slightly overpowering your jutsu. You grit your teeth and close your eyes. You concentrate on kneading more chakra, growling as you feel your chakra flowing the way you wanted it. Slowly, the water blast from your dragon was extinguishing that of the fire dragon. In terse silence, the water dragon releases a more powerful blast, ultimately, defeating the fire dragon and directly hitting the user. His body crashes against a tree and groans before his body sags.

You breathe in a sigh of relief and smile. You kneel down, suddenly tired from everything. Kakashi and the others approach you. It was their turn to ask if you were okay to which you answered with a thumb up.

 _That was fun_ , you thought.

“Is it over?” You ask.

“Byakugan!” The male with lavender eyes uttered. He scans the perimeter. For some reason, his eyes went to the bodies of the ninjas you threw senbon needles at. His eyes widened.

“Neji, what’s wrong?”

“The senbons… They accurately pierced through the chakra points…”

This comes as a surprise to everyone. 

The chakra points are nodes from which chakra can be released. If they are blocked, then the body won’t be able to release any chakra. These chakra points are as thin as the tips of a needle so to be able to puncture it accurately is almost impossible.

Your mother reveals herself from her hiding spot and jumps in front of you. The trio suddenly shifts their body, ready to attack, but Kakashi just raises his hand to stop them. They reluctantly relax.

“You didn’t help.” Kakashi says, annoyed.

Your mother grins. “I told you I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

Technically, she was right. She didn’t do anything stupid, in fact she didn’t do _anything_. He knows her well enough to know why she didn’t help. She wanted to see for herself the fruits of your training.

Kakashi turns to you and glares at you and quite frankly, it makes you nervous, whether it was because of his piercing stare or his intimidating red eye, you weren’t sure. Either way, you raised your hands up in surrender. “I already said I’m sorry…”

He crosses his arms while he still looks at you. You stand up from the ground, “...but I’ll say it again. I’m sorry.” You say as you bowed your head.

When you have straightened yourself, Kakashi still looks pissed. “You!” He points a finger to your direction. You flinch. “You did the right thing,” he finishes what he’s saying as his eyes crinkle, a sign that he was smiling under his mask.

You were shocked. Then your mother chuckles and that snaps you out of your shock.

“You came at the right time. If you were a second too late, they would've endured more damage or worse, they would’ve been dead by now.”

The trio nods their head at you and thanks you. You smile warmly in return, not knowing what to say.

“Alright. So you might be wondering who they are. This is Taketori Kana and her daughter, Michiko.” Kakashi says. The male with lavender eyes momentarily squinted at the mention of the surname. It sounded familiar but he just can’t remember where he’d heard it before. “My mission is to bring them to Konoha, but well, someone decided to be nosy so we ended up here.”

“Please call me Y/N!”

“Let me guess, you’re Shikaku’s son,” your mother points to the male with his hair tied in a spiky ponytail.

He nods. “I’m Shikamaru.”

“Hmm… Are you perhaps Inoichi’s daughter?”

“Yes ma’am! My name’s Yamanaka Ino.” They shake hands.

“And you… the Byakugan, huh?” Your mother smirks. She looks at the boy and then to you and then back again. She’s glancing awfully weird at you and the male, like she knows something that you don’t. “You must be a Hyuga.”

He nods, “Yes. I am Hyuga Neji.”

“So where are you headed?” Kakashi asks. 

“Same as you.” Shimakaru says.

“Well, why don’t we head out together?” Your mother asks.

The three shinobis looked at each other and nodded.

It didn’t take time for you all to be jumping from branch to branch again. For the first few kilometers, it was easy for you to keep up. But slowly, you were feeling tired. Your vision was getting blurry but you still carried on.

Then your mother abruptly stops. Neji does too. And that was the last thing you saw before you felt your body falling.


	3. Revelations

Kana abruptly stops speeding off as she senses your chakra levels being low enough. Neji stops too, with his Byakugan he reaches the same conclusion as Kana did. When Neji stopped, it took a little while before the group noticed. 

You were lagging behind already so they both turned to your direction, looking worriedly at you. 

“What’s the matter?” Kakashi asks when he notices Neji and Kana has stopped moving.

No one answers.

The last thing you saw was Neji looking over at you before you felt your body falling.

He was the first to jump in to collect your body, making it in time before you could crash to the ground. Kana sighs in relief, grateful for Neji’s quick reflexes.

The others jump out of the tree to see what happened.

“She used up too much chakra,” Neji explains.

Kana nods, “She’s always like that, always pushing herself… When we’re training, she wouldn’t know when to stop. At first it was admirable how hardworking she is but the more advanced jutsu she learns, the more chakra she uses up. We’ve already worked on increasing her chakra reserves and for a while it worked. She doesn’t faint as much as before but I guess the fight a while ago was too much for her.”

“It was probably the water dragon which took a toll on her. That technique is ideally used when the user is near a body of water but if the user is skilled enough, they can use it in areas where there is none,” Kakashi guesses. “That’s a testament of how skilled she actually is, however, I could only imagine how much chakra she used to make water out of nowhere.”

Kana hums in agreement. “Let me just check her body for a while.” She puts her hands over your body. Her hands give off a green glow. She goes over your body, your internal organs were all okay — in fact, they were too perfect for someone who took a blow on the gut. She squints her eyes. Then she notices the tear on your shirt just over shoulder and takes a look. There was no sign of a wound despite having small traces of blood accumulated on your shirt. “She even healed herself,” she concludes.

Ino scrunches her brows, “When? I didn’t see her do anything to herself at all.”

Kana pinches her nose, “I have a feeling it was when she got to your rescue.”

“Why do you look so annoyed?” Kakashi asks.

“She has a mastery over a lot of water jutsus. As I’ve said, more advanced jutsus require more chakra. This is a combination of water and medical ninjutsu. She even did it without using any hand seals.”

“Isn’t that something only the First Hokage can do?”

“Hashirama cells can do that, yes. His cells have enhanced regeneration abilities that even various injuries could be healed in moments. However, Michiko doesn’t have his cells. She uses a highly advanced water jutsu to heal herself without using her hands. She uses water as a catalyst to redirect chakra around the body, concentrating more into the wounded area which allows her to heal herself at an accelerated rate. In a way it’s similar to Tsunade’s Creation Rebirth, however, she uses chakra to stimulate cell division and _replace_ damaged cells, however, Michiko just _repairs_ the damaged cells. Tsunade can use her technique easily because she has stored chakra while Michiko could only use what’s available for her.”

Everyone gets surprised by the sudden revelation. With your mastery over complicated jutsus and this advanced medical ninjutsu, you would be a great asset to Konoha, if you knew how to properly utilize your chakra that is. 

“That’s amazing!” Ino exclaims. Neji and Shikamaru nod their heads while looking at your resting body.

“Bottomline is, she shouldn’t be doing this jutsu until she increased her chakra.”

“I’ll let the Hokage know about this.” Kakashi declares.

“So what do we do now?” Shikamaru asks as he looks over his shoulder to the direction of Konoha.

“It looks like we’re actually close. Should we get going?” Kana answers with a question.

“What about Y/N?” Ino asks.

Kana raises one of her brows and looks over at the males. Then she feigns distress, “If only someone from the Akimichi clan was here…”

“Choji’s on a separate mission with Asuma sensei,” Ino informs her.

Kana sighs rather loudly.

“What a drag…” Shikamaru mumbles under his breath but proceeds to carry you over his back.

This makes Kana grin, that’s exactly what Shikaku would say if he was there.

“How do you know our parents anyway?”

“We used to attend the Academy together.” Your mother says matter-of-factly. She needs not to say anymore so the conversation is dropped after that.

There wasn’t any need to rush anymore so everyone was just walking towards Konoha. From the pace they were going at, it would take at least three hours to reach the gates of Konoha.

It took you half the journey to wake up again. You groan. You notice then that you were being carried on someone’s back.

You tap their arm and Shikamaru looks over his shoulder to you. You motion for him to bring you down to which he complies.

Shikamaru stretches after he brings you down.

Your face pales. “I’m sorry! Did I make you uncomfortable?”

Shikamaru gets flustered and then denies while shaking his hands, “No, no, it’s okay.”

You continue saying sorry while he assures you it’s okay until Ino skips over to you. When she comes to your side, you stop apologizing to look over at her while you could hear a sigh of relief from Shikamaru.

“You’re up! How are you feeling?” Ino asks, chirping.

“I’m feeling okay now. What about you? How are you now?”

“Well that’s a relief! I’m all good thanks to you. In fact, we’re all good because you all came to the rescue.”

You flush, suddenly shy from the gratitude directed towards you. You cleared your throat, thinking of a way to change the subject. You initially wanted to ask about their mission but you remembered you weren’t supposed to know such details since technically, you’re an outsider, and a civilian at that, so you bite your tongue and hold the question in. So instead you ask how Konoha looks like and what were you supposed to expect from the place.

The question solicits a shocked reaction from Ino. “You haven’t been to Konoha?”

You shyly tell her no which then prompts the blond girl to tell you about the places you should make sure to visit and why. Every now and then Shikamaru would scoff and tell her to stop exaggerating things.

The two continued to bicker and you couldn’t help but chuckle at them. Then your gaze would wander to Neji who was walking behind the group, seemingly content on his own.

Something in you wants to approach him and talk to him but you were too shy to do so. You blame it on your curiosity. And probably because he had unique eyes that you could only describe as pretty. But when he glances at you at the same time you peek at his direction, you couldn’t help but feel flustered. You just wanted the ground to swallow you whole right then and there.

Thankfully, Shikamaru and Ino didn’t notice your dilemma. Even Kakashi and your mother were too engrossed talking about something to bother looking back at your direction.

Your embarrassment faded quickly, however, when the gates of Konoha came into view. Your nerves suddenly start to kick in.

You’re going to have to start a new life here — a place you’ve never been to before with people whom you never met yet. It’s definitely a new chapter of your life, one that you aren’t ready to face.

Being the only one who has never set foot in this village, you follow the rest of your group in silence, afraid to lose your way in a foreign location. You look around in silence. Your eyes land on the stone mountain with five faces that were etched. Something about it felt familiar. You aren’t sure what or why you feel that way though.

Ino follows your line of vision and says, “That’s the Hokage rock where all the faces of the Hokage are carved. The fifth one is our current Hokage, Lady Tsunade. You’ll be meeting her soon.”

You nod.

“Oi Ino!” Shikamaru calls her as he heads towards a building.

“That’s my cue. I’ll see you later Y/N. It was nice meeting you!”

You wave her goodbye and the rest of her group. When they are out of sight, you walk towards your mother.

“So… what now?” You ask.

“We’ll be meeting with the Hokage after Neji’s team is done reporting with their mission.” Kakashi says.

You’re antsy waiting to be called to the Hokage’s office. You’re finally going to know who killed your father and hopefully why they did it as well. You’re not sure if you’re prepared to know but what you’re sure is that you’re going to have to be ready to restrain your mother in case she does _something_ without thinking rationally.

With that thought, you take a quick glance at your mother. You let out a small smile at the sight of her. She was in high spirits. Her eyes were twinkling as she looked at the village. You assume she’s reminiscing her past here. She must’ve had lots of good memories here. _You hope you’d make great memories here as well._

Eventually you were all called to the Hokage’s office.

“Long time no see, Kana!” Tsunade greets your mother.

Your mother raises a brow and grins. “Look who’s high and mighty now,” your mother teases. “Did you know that when we,” she points at you, “were at the Hidden Grass Village some people were looking for you? They asked me if I saw you and for a moment I panicked because I thought they knew about our connection but then they said you owed them money. I had to pinch myself to stop myself from laughing!”

Tsunade chuckles but her assistant looked horrified with the news.

Kakashi clears his throat which in turn makes Tsunade shift to professional mode. 

“Right. Back to business.” Tsunade says.

Kakashi proceeds to relay the happenings on the mission. From successfully being able to convince you both to come back to Konoha to the fight that you walked into and to finally arriving at Konoha.

Tsunade listens intently. “I see you raised Michiko well.” Tsunade tells your mother.

“Please call me Y/N,” you say.

She ignores what you’ve said. “She would be a great asset to us. From your assessment over the years of training her, what do you think of her?” She asks as if you weren’t there.

“First of all, I want to clarify that whatever I’m going to say is unbiased, and I’m basing this assessment by _my_ standards.” Your mother starts. “Now, let me start by saying that she has shown great potential at an early age. By the age of four, she has already mastered the basics. She could easily be considered a Chunin by the age of six and a Jonin by the age of ten based on her performance and skills.”

This has the Hokage’s assistant as well as Kakashi shocked. Tsunade though, doesn’t react at all.

“I taught her medical ninjutsu when she was nine years old and she has honed her skills since then. Now she’s able to heal herself without using hand seals.”

This statement makes Tsunade smile.

“Her chakra has an affinity towards Water nature—”

“As expected. It runs in the family.” Tsunade comments.

“—but she can also manipulate all chakra natures. She has also mastered complicated jutsus like Shadow Clone Technique and Flying Raijin Technique.”

“Huh, impressive. It seems like this generation is outstanding. The more you describe her, the more she sounds like her great grandfather.” Tsunade cuts Kana’s speech again.

Your mother doesn’t seem to mind Tsunade’s comments here and there. “However, with all the knowledge and mastery she has over such jutsus, I still believe further training must be done to increase her chakra reserves. As Kakashi reported, she fainted from using too much chakra so that’s the only thing that really hinders her performance as a shinobi.”

“I understand. She sounds exceptional and extremely capable. However, Jiraiya mentioned that she’s not actually a shinobi? She was never enrolled in the Academy, right?”

“Right.” You answer.

“Now that’s going to be a problem… Technically we can’t make you a Genin if you don’t pass the Academy. Even if it was Kana who trained you, who if you don’t know, has been — uh —trained by all of us Legendary Sannins, that still doesn’t count.”

“I understand. It’s fine by me to take the Academy if that’s what I must do to be a ninja.”

“I also think it’s a good idea for you to not skip the Academy in case there is some information that has slipped Kana’s mind. And who knows? Maybe relearning the basics can help you come up with new jutsus just like your great grandfather.”

Why does she keep on mentioning your great grandfather though?

“Anyway, I’ll have you admitted to the Academy by the day after tomorrow. You can rest up tomorrow and explore the village.”

“Thank you Hokage-sama.”

“Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about why we called you here."

You and your mother straightened up at that.

“I believe Kakashi has briefed you about what has happened here since you left, correct?”

You and your mother nod.

“We’re understaffed right now so we need your help with different kinds of missions. Michiko won’t be able to go on missions yet until she graduates from the Academy so that’s a setback but with Kana being here, that wouldn’t be much of a problem.”

_Okay, that’s simple enough._

“Aside from the regular missions…” Tsunade clears her throat and changes her approach, “According to Jiraiya’s intel, it’s only a matter of time before Akatsuki makes a move. So far we know that they’re planning on taking the Tailed Beasts. Other than that, we have no idea what they’re planning. They’re a group of S-rank criminals so your skill set is very important for the safety of the village right now.”

For a few minutes Tsunade remains silent. You’re assuming she’s thinking of how to say what she plans on saying next.

“Jiraiya was tailing an alleged Akatsuki member at the Land of Hot Water…”

The Land of Hot Water… That’s where your father died.

“There were a lot of cases of murder in that area and rumors said that that serial killer was part of the Akatsuki organization. Among the men they killed was—” she stares at your mother directly, “—your husband.”


	4. Familial Bonds and Ties

“Among the men they killed was your husband.”

Your breath hitched. It’s the only sound that could be heard after the revelation. You whipped your head towards your mother, her posture was suddenly tense. Her hands are clenched into fists, her jaw is locked and her shoulders stiff. It was obvious she’s seething but she’s trying to restrain herself from doing something.

_ Your father. Dead. Killed by a serial killer.  _ **_A serial killer_ ** _. A serial killer who allegedly belongs to Akatsuki. S-rank criminals. _

Your mind was reeling. You put your hands behind your back to hide the way it’s currently shaking. You breathe in heavily and close your eyes in an attempt to calm yourself. You have to remain composure, the same way your mother was restraining herself from punching the wall.

“Now I understand this is a heavy subject, however, I do owe you this information since this is what Kakashi offered to get you back here. That’s also why I’m not going to assign any missions to you yet, Kana, so you can process things. And I won’t be having you back at the ANBU as I think it’ll make things harder for you. I know it’s hard losing someone dear to you, but we need you right now. The village needs you. The most I can give you is a week off.”

Your mother nods robotically.

Tsunade turns to you. “As much as I want to give you the same time off, the earlier you are admitted to the Academy, the earlier you can graduate and become a full fledged shinobi. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” You whispered.

“Now that I have given you this information, I forbid you both to do anything related to Akatsuki. You aren’t allowed to engage nor to approach the organization unless I order you to.”

Kana obviously wants to protest but Tsunade cuts her off. “Just because you’re you doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. I’ll personally make sure you get punished accordingly if you disobey my order.” She threatens.

“I have already assigned the best people from ANBU to investigate more on matters related to Akatsuki and to Orochimaru as well, who has been identified to be a previous member of the organization. Jiraiya is also gathering intel during his travels. Rest assured, we are dealing with this with utmost importance. Please don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure to update you from time to time as well.” Tsunade’s voice softens as she finishes her speech.

Your mother looks relieved that this was being handled properly rather than having this be swept under the rug.

“For the meantime, use your time wisely. Hone your skills both in terms of strength and in terms of strategy. If they plan on taking the Tailed Beasts I’m pretty sure they’re highly skilled in combat. We don’t know what to expect from them so you have to make sure you’ll be stronger than what you are now.”

“Right. Thank you Hokage-sama,” you say on behalf of your mother.

She nods, “That’s all I wanted to say. Kakashi will escort you to your new flat. I’ll also have someone tour you around the village tomorrow Michiko.”

You bow your head.

Tsunade then turns to Kakashi and nods her head. He takes this as a signal that he’s dismissed.

The walk to your new home was silent. You’re replaying the whole meeting with the Hokage in your mind. So many things are running through your head from who exactly was your great grandfather to how you should train harder to become stronger.

Both you and your mother thank Kakashi after he dropped you off to your new flat. You silently start to unpack your things. In the midst of putting your clothes in a cabinet, your mother breaks the silence.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me. Although I don’t think I have all the answers right now…” Your mother says. “You can ask me anything and I’ll answer them truthfully if they’re within my knowledge.”

“Can you tell me about your side of the family?”

“I suppose it’s time for you to know… Where do I even begin?”

“The Hokage kept mentioning my great grandfather…”

“Right. Your great grandfather. He was the second Hokage. Senju Tobirama. He was one of the founders of Konoha along with his brother Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. During his era, he was one of the most powerful shinobis. Truth be told, he had already died when I was conceived so what I know about him is only what my parents told me and what I’ve heard from other people. Anyway, he’s well known for his speed, his sensory skills and his mastery of all five chakra natures, most especially Water Release.”

So that was what Lady Tsunade meant when she mentioned that your chakra affinity towards water nature runs in the family.

“He was also the one who created the complicated jutsus you know now — Shadow Clone technique and Flying Raijin technique.”

Now you understand why Tsunade holds your great grandfather in high regards.

“Why do you call those jutsus complicated?”

She hums, thinking of how to properly explain why.

“Did you know that the Shadow Clone technique can only be safely used by Jonin level ninjas?” Answering your question with another question.

“Really? Why?”

“Yes! It’s because the user’s chakra gets evenly divided between themselves and the clones they make. This rapid depletion can be dangerous, that’s why. The other version of it, Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, is actually a forbidden jutsu since the chakra cost is far greater.”

“Wow.” You didn’t really know about this. You just use it because you were taught how to.

“Now for the Flying Raijin technique, this is actually a technique that only our family, the direct descendants of Senju Tobirama, know. People with Senju blood have extraordinary life force and larger chakra reserves than average shinobis which allows us to do this technique. The only other person who was able to do it outside of our family was Minato, the Fourth Hokage.”

It made sense that your family knew this technique. When your mother taught it to you when you were younger, you had a hard time grasping the concept and you fainted a lot when you tried doing it the first few attempts since it took a lot of chakra.

“Why does the Fourth Hokage know how to do it?”

“Now that’s a good question,” your mother grins. “I taught him how to do it... I mean, initially it wasn’t him who I was teaching it to.”

You look at her questioningly.

She continues, “I was teaching it to my teammate, Kushina. She was once a jinchuriki so I wanted her to learn the technique to help her escape in case she gets captured. Because the Nine Tailed Beast was sealed inside her and she was an Uzumaki, she had huge chakra reserves that should allow her to use the technique. But she really had a hard time understanding it. Minato was her lover back then and he would often be around when me and Kushina trained. Eventually, he was the one who was able to actually do it. Thank heavens he was able to master it otherwise we wouldn’t have won the Third Shinobi War. He was even better than me when using the technique  _ I _ taught him.”

You chuckle as you could hear the whine in her voice.

“But you, Michiko, I believe you could surpass Minato. Although you already have more-than-average chakra reserves, it seems you still need more. And despite that problem, you’ve already surpassed me, that’s for sure. Just make sure you train harder.”

“I will.”

“You know, from your skills now, it’s understandable why you remind Tsunade of the Second Hokage.”

It was a huge compliment that you feel flustered so you try to subtly change the topic.

“Why are you so close to Lady Tsunade anyway?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? She’s the granddaughter of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama. We’re cousins.”

The revelation shocks you. Your mind gets dizzy with the new information. Your mother literally has connections with almost all of the Hokages.

“Okay… So you’re a Senju like the First, Second, and Fifth Hokage. And you’re a friend of the Fourth Hokage. What do you know about the Third Hokage then?”

“The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, he’s the sensei of the Legendary Sannins — Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru. Funnily enough he knows me as the nosy kid who keeps on sneaking in to watch her cousin train. Other than that, I served under him when I was in the ANBU and he was still the Hokage.”

With the revelations you’ve learned today, you realized why she kept you in the dark for so long. She has connections with lots of powerful people. With that connection comes threats and dangers. Maybe that’s why she was worried when some stranger asked her about Tsunade’s whereabouts, because they’re related and if word got out, your family could be in danger.

It’s as if she could hear your thoughts, so her playful expression turned into a serious one. “Here’s the thing though, only the major clan heads in Konoha are aware that we’re related to the Second Hokage. He married someone from the Sarutobi clan in secret. My father was born in the midst of the First Shinobi war and the Second Hokage wanted the existence of our family to be kept a secret in order to protect us. That’s why we don’t use Senju as our surname.”

It made sense. If you’re someone powerful, enemies will make sure to target your weaknesses, and what’s everyone’s weakness? Familial bonds and ties.

“My mother’s side, the Taketori clan, is a little bit different. But that’s a story for another time. For now though, just process what I’ve told you, okay?”

You nod, already knowing what she’s talking about.  _ You’re an important figure and that you’re destined for greatness _ .

“And one more thing. I know I taught you to trust no one back then but that’s only because it’s dangerous being out there in the open with no one to back you up. However, now that we’re in Konoha, you don’t need to worry about that anymore, okay? You can trust everyone here. Everyone is your family here.”

That sounds nice.

“Now let’s go grab something outside before we retire for the night.”

_____________________________

When morning comes, you start doing your usual routine — get up, fix your bed, take a bath, get dressed, go out and about. You were tying up your hair when someone knocked on the door.

You open the door without much thought. You’re greeted by a girl your age with pink hair. “Good morning Michiko! I’m Haruno Sakura. Lady Tsunade asked me to show you around the village.”

“Nice to meet you, Sakura. Please call me Y/N.” You smile.

“Alright, Y/N. Shall we head out?”

“Sure!”

Sakura is nice and very thoughtful. She shows you around the market first, pointing where to buy things that are used or consumed daily.

“This is where you can buy vegeta—” She’s cut off by the sound of your grumbling stomach.

For a moment she just blinks and then you laugh together.

“Sorry, I didn’t have breakfast yet.”

“It’s fine! Come on, let’s grab something to eat. I know just the place.”

You follow her as she leads you to Ichiraku Ramen. She orders her usual order and you get whatever she’s having.

“So how are you liking Konoha so far?” She asks.

“It’s nice. The people are nice too. I’ve met some ninjas on my way here and they’re pretty cool.”

“That’s great. I’m glad they made a nice first impression,” she smiles, “Oh, what do you think about having dinner with the rest of the gang tonight? We can hang out at Yakiniku-Q!”

“I’d love that. But I can’t tonight,” you say, thinking about training with your mother since it’s been some time since last she trained with you, “how about tomorrow instead?”

“Sure! I’ll let everyone know. It’s been a while since we all ate together anyway.”

When both of you finish your meals, Sakura shows you where the yakiniku place is. She also tells you where the local bookstore and library are located then she leads you to the Hospital. “This is the Konoha Hospital. I work here so more often than not, you’ll be able to find me here. Lady Tsunade told me you’re a medical nin too so if you want to, you can drop by anytime to help. Just let me know, I’ll pull some strings so you can observe or assist here.” She grins.

“I just might take you up on that offer some time. I intend on honing my medical skills so I’ll make sure I drop by.”

Sakura is always eager when it comes to this field and she shares the same passion of Tsunade to grow the number of ninjas that can practice medical ninjutsu considering medics are very important especially during battles. So your response to her seems to satisfy her.

She leads you to the Hokage’s Residence and the Academy next, briefly explaining each area. Then she shows you the training grounds.

The training ground was occupied at the time both of you arrived. There were three ninjas sparring with each other. You make out that one of them is Neji. One ninja has black bowl-cut hair with thick eyebrows wearing a green jumpsuit and the other was a girl with her hair tied into two buns. 

“That’s Team Guy.” Sakura whispers. “But Guy sensei’s not here, he’s still on a mission but I’m sure you’ll meet him soon. You’ll know when it’s him.”

You don’t understand what she meant by that but you just nod.

You both watch as they fight off each other. You note that they’re all great at taijutsu. The guy in the green jumpsuit is particularly fast while the girl is great at handling different kinds of weapons. What had you in awe, however, is Neji, who was able to block and dodge all of the attacks of the two. Sure, you knew he was very skilled since he was able to fend off his opponents well when you first met him, but you weren’t really able to pay attention to his moves back then because you were busy fighting.

Now that you can focus on watching him, you can’t help but admire his skills. He’s even graceful when he moves.

All you could think about then was, he would be an amazing sparring partner.

All too soon, they finish up with their training. This had you a little bit disappointed because you wanted to watch more but you figured they must’ve been tired.

Sakura waves her hand as soon as they finish and they all walk over to your direction while wiping off their sweat.

“Sakura-chan!” The guy in green jumpsuit exclaims. “How have you been? Did you come to see me? Who are you with?” He asks all in one breath.

“Calm down, Lee!” The girl scolds.

“This is Taketori Y/N, she’s new here and I’m showing her around the village and we saw you guys training so we came to watch and to greet you guys as well.”

“I am Rock Lee who firmly believes that hard work and perseverance is key to become a powerful ninja!”

You can clearly see their girl teammate’s eyes twitching at Lee’s overzealous introduction.

You giggle and introduce yourself to him with as much excitement as you can muster.

“I’m Tenten! It’s nice to meet you Y/N.” The girl introduces herself.

You shake her hand and smile at her warmly. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

You turn your head in Neji’s direction. He was standing behind the two, watching you interact with his team members. You give him a smile and a wave. He nods. Weirdly enough, you still feel a need to talk to him, it’s like there’s something pulling you to him.

“Neji, it's rude not to introduce yourself.” Tenten frowns.

“We’ve already met.” Neji answers.

Tenten and Lee looked like they were about to ask more questions about it but stop when they see you approaching Neji. You weren’t even aware that you’re actually taking steps towards his direction until you stopped walking and realized you were directly in front of him. Now you’re supposed to think of something to say because you’re going to make a fool out of yourself if you don’t.

Everyone was looking at the both of you and, god, were you embarrassed. Neji just blinks, curious as to why you went to him.

You bowed rather quickly and mumbled, “I didn’t get to thank you for catching me yesterday.”

Neji looks surprised and immediately pulls you upright. “It’s fine. No need to thank me.”

Tenten and Sakura snickers, finding it amusing that both of you looked flustered after that. Lee, on the other hand, swings his hand over Neji’s shoulders and says, “You truly are worthy of being my rival, Neji, for saving Y/N!”

There’s this thing about Lee that makes you feel like you shouldn’t be embarrassed for what you did so you let out a genuine chuckle while Neji flushes red with embarrassment as Lee continues to praise him.

People from Konoha don't seem to be that bad. Maybe you’d enjoy living here from now on. With that thought, you couldn’t resist the smile finding its way into your face.


	5. First Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit... rushed. I'm sorry 😫✌🏼

Your first day in the Academy wasn’t really how you wanted it to be.

First off, you were running late because you overslept, too tired from the night training session you had with your mother. She didn’t even go easy on you unlike the other times she trained with you.

_ Your mother kept throwing punches after punches and kicks after kicks. You barely had time to counter her attacks. She kept you on the defensive for a while with how fast she was moving. It was after the second hour when you got tired from dodging each blow she tried to land on you. Or was it the third hour? You lost track of time. _

_ Eventually she got your guard down and landed a powerful hit on your gut before she stabbed you with a kunai on your leg. You remember feeling how painful it was but you didn’t give up just yet so when she jumped out after stabbing you, you quickly did the Lightning Release: Four Pillar Bind jutsu. _

_ Just as you did the last hand sign for the jutsu, four rock pillars raised from the ground where she landed, shooting bolts of lightning towards the surrounding area. It effectively immobilized your mother and it bought you time to compose yourself. She got electrocuted once or twice. But that didn’t stop her, she countered it by using Wind Release: Assassin’s Rush technique which forcefully destroyed the rock pillars and propelled her to your direction.  _

_ With the technique, she was moving extremely fast towards your direction, the only problem was that she wouldn’t be able to change directions, otherwise, she would lose the speed. Just as she was about to reach you, you instantly made a Mud Wall. You were aware that with that speed, it would only break, but it would also decrease her momentum. Just as she crashed into the Mud Wall, you leap out of the way. _

_ With the impact from the crash, she wasn’t able to get up as fast as she wanted to. This gave you time to use the Water Style: Ripping Torrent. The thing was, she used the Flying Raijin technique then. Despite that, however, she still got hit although it was only minimal damage. It was way past midnight when that happened and she declared the training session over. _

_ You rushed to her side to check up on the damage from your attacks. Fortunately, not much damage was done so you made quick work in healing her. When you were done, your mother checked up on you. _

_ “I think I overdid it.” She cringed as her hands glowed green. _

_ You knew how much damage you sustained from her attacks being a medical nin yourself. A cracked rib, internal bruising in your abdominal area, a huge gash on your leg. You were treated by your mother, but there’s only so much medical ninjutsu can do. Your body won’t heal overnight, you were quite aware of it. But you assured your mother you’ll be fine. _

Before even going to the Academy, you had to report to the Hokage first. You arrive five minutes late. What took most of your time was bandaging your abdominal area and your leg. The new set of clothes your mother got you consisting of a sleeveless crop top and shorts didn’t even hide the bandages. It made you a little bit frustrated, which added a few minutes to your usual preparation time. Not to mention you’re limping.

You run as fast as your limping leg could allow. You couldn’t help but think that if you had marked the Hokage’s Office, you wouldn’t have been so late.

You bowed immediately after entering the room, apologizing for being late.

Rather than being disappointed with your tardiness, Tsunade gets startled by your appearance. “What happened to you?”

When you meet her eyes, you deduce that she’s referring to your bandaged body. You rub your neck and give her an awkward smile, “Me and my mother got a little carried away with our training.”

She stands from her seat and checks on your condition. “Oh, you’re healing yourself right now?”

“Huh? I’m— I-I wasn’t aware?” Your response came out like a question.

She raises her left eyebrow. “You sustained a lot of damage, I can tell. Normally, these types of injuries limit one’s movement. It’s surprising you can even run, but then again you have your medical ninjutsu. Anyway, you’re healing nicely. At this rate I’d say your broken rib will heal in three days time instead of the usual 6-8 weeks period. But I suggest you don’t do any training for the meantime. There’s a high possibility of your chakra getting depleted if you’re unconsciously healing yourself.”

“I understand.”

Tsunade then calls in a man with brown hair tied in a ponytail. He also has a scar across the bridge of his nose. “Now Michiko, meet Iruka. He’ll be one of your instructors in the Academy.”

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Iruka. Please call me Y/N.”

Iruka shakes your hand and returns your warm greeting. “Ah, that’s a little bit too formal. Iruka sensei is fine.”

Tsunade dismisses both of you after she relays her expectations on you.

Iruka then shows you around the Academy first all while explaining the curriculum to you. Everything in the curriculum has pretty much been taught to you already but you don’t say it out loud. The only thing that has you curious is History. You’re eager to know more about the Hokages, most especially your great grandfather.

When he’s done showing you around, he leads you to your classroom. In the room were children aged five to eight year olds, reading from their textbooks. Iruka introduces you to the whole class and the standard class begins.

Your first day in the Academy is rather uneventful. You learned nothing new, but you still listened to the discussion anyway. Most of the kids were half-asleep or weren’t really listening.

In fact, there were some even gossiping behind you. Funnily enough, they were guessing why you were attending the Academy at your age. One assumed it was because you sucked at being a ninja that you got dropped out from different Academies. The other one said that you kept failing the final exam so you weren’t allowed to graduate. All valid assumptions but it sounds ridiculous to you nonetheless. Despite being the subject of gossip, you couldn’t help but smile at their imaginations.  _ God, you wish you were still a kid _ . 

Not later after that, lunch break comes. Just as the bell finishes ringing, you whip your head back to look at the children who were gossiping behind you. When you see them, the first thought that comes to your mind is:  _ Why do bullies go in threes? _

Now you wouldn’t say you looked mean per se, however, back when you first started helping your father sell his goods, his customers tend to get intimidated by you at first glance especially when you aren’t smiling.

Since you got reprimanded by your father, you got used to smiling more. And that habit stuck with you until the present. So instead of glaring at the kids behind you, you gave them a smile. Despite that, they still looked terrified. 

Maybe it was because even if you looked weak, you’re still older  and taller and they don’t want to get caught bad mouthing you? Or was it because they don’t want to be scolded? You don’t really understand.

You raise your fist in their direction and they immediately closed their eyes and flinched. They were expecting a punch but when it didn’t come, they opened their eyes to see why. You opened your hand, palm up. On your palm were candies which you always carried around your pocket. You gave them a closed-eye smile and offered the treats to them which they reluctantly took. After that, the kids immediately dashed out the door and you couldn’t help but chuckle at their behavior.

That was basically the only incident that was noteworthy on your first day in the Academy. You really didn’t have expectations but you sure thought it would be more... hands-on.

Before you know it, you were dismissed. You weren’t too sure what time you’re supposed to meet up with Sakura and the rest but it was still quite early for dinner. So you decide to walk around the village first.

Somehow you ended up going to the Konoha’s Cemetery. You looked over some of the grave stones but nothing comes up when you read their names.

Later on your vision focuses on a sculpture of what seems to be flames out front  or was it fire? Being an outsider meant you weren’t really sure what it represented so you make sure to engrave it on your mind and ask your mother later. You weren’t sure how long you were staring at it but you only snapped out of it when the sun had started to set.

You start to walk out of the cemetery and head towards Yakiniku-Q but not before stealing one last glance at the sculpture.

Technically, Yakiniku-Q wasn’t that far but it took you longer than you expected because of your injured leg. Sakura had been waiting outside the store looking worried. 

“Sakura!” You greet her, “I’m so sorry I’m late. I lost track of time.”

“Are you alright? You look a little…”

“Roughed up?” You continued her sentence, chuckling. “I’m fine. I was training with my mother last night, that’s all.”

She leads you inside while you talk.

“Y/N! What happened?” Another voice asks worriedly.

You look over at the source of the voice. It was Ino. You wave your hand and smile. “I lost track of time.” You say again as you and Sakura walk towards the table with the rest of their friends. It seems that they have already ordered food for everyone.

“No, I meant  _ what happened to you _ ?”

Honestly, nothing was remotely funny but you couldn’t help but smile at how worried Ino and Sakura seem to be. It’s heartwarming to say the least.

“Training with my mother last night,” was all you had to say. Sakura urges you to sit somewhere in the middle so you can easily converse with the rest. You sit in between Lee and Sakura.

No one has introduced themselves because Ino hasn’t dropped the topic just yet. She looks like she wants you to elaborate more but you couldn’t tell.

Shikamaru sighs. “Maybe you can let Sakura check up on you, Y/N? Ino won’t stop looking at you like that unless you give in.”

You tilt your head and then face Sakura. You both nod at the same time. She places her hand on top of your bandaged abdomen. Her eyes widened just a bit, something no one would catch if they weren’t looking closely.

You catch her eye and give her a closed smile as if saying:  _ I’m fine, please don’t tell on me _ . Hoping she’d somehow get the message despite not verbally talking.

When she’s done examining you, everyone’s eyes are on her, waiting for her verdict. You’re waiting for her to say something too, but honestly, you aren’t really as worried as you thought you would. It would be fine if she tells the truth, it’s not like you’re going to lose face or something. But you just prefer not to have more unnecessary attention on you.

“She’s healing nicely,” is what she says. Vague, but good enough answer for them. It seems they trust Sakura’s words.

“Well, I’m glad!” Tenten exclaims.

The subject gets dropped after that.

“Anyway, everyone, this is Y/N. Lady Tsunade said she’ll be staying here in Konoha from now on. It would be nice if we get acquainted with each other.” Sakura says to the rest of the group. She then proceeds on introducing everyone to you, including the names of their respective teams.

_ Team Kurenai: Hinata, Kiba, Shino. Team Asuma: Ino, Shikamaru, Choji. Team Guy: Neji, Lee, Tenten. _

“Say, Shikamaru, how do you know Y/N?” Choji asks Shikamaru while the others are talking softly with each other. The question was supposed to be said in a whispering tone, however, he said it a little bit too loudly for it to be considered a whisper. Still, you wouldn’t really catch it if you weren’t seated close to them.

“She and Kakashi sensei rescued us from an ambush the other day.” Ino answers the question despite it not being directed to her. “You should’ve seen her, she was amazing.” She says after she swallows her food.

You start to feel flustered again from the praise. Thank god, not everyone was listening in to their conversation.

“So how was your day, Y/N?” Tenten asks, the soft chatter comes to a halt. 

“Nothing much happened. I had to meet the Hokage and then go to the Academy. Then I wandered around the village before going here.”

“Academy? You’re teaching?”

“Oh, no. You’ve got it wrong. I’m a student.”

Now this gets everyone’s attention entirely. In the corner of your eye, you could see the meat on Sakura and Ino’s chopsticks fall, while Tenten’s chopsticks actually clatter. Everyone else stops chewing, even Neji and Shino who you didn’t think were listening.

Their reactions were comical you couldn’t hold your laughter in. 

Ino seems unfazed from your reaction, “No way! But... your skills... You aren’t a shinobi?”

“Not officially,” you answer, “My father was a civilian, a traveling merchant, so our family traveled all the time. The longest we stayed in a place was a week and then we’d go to a different village. So going to the Academy wasn’t really an option for me. But my mother trained me every night so I’m not completely in the dark.”

“Not completely in the dark is an understatement,” Shikamaru mumbles.

“Lady Tsunade called us here saying there’s a shortage of ninjas. And since I didn’t have ‘proper training’ I have to attend the Academy first before I could be on missions and whatnot.”

“Isn’t that a bit too much? Can’t they just assess your skills or something?” Sakura asks.

“I agree with Ino that her skills are good, but we have graduation exams and chunin exams for a reason.” Neji says.

You nod your head at his statement. “He’s right and besides, I still have a lot to learn anyway.”

Ino and Shikamaru look unconvinced considering they saw how you fight firsthand.

“But please, enough about me… I want to know more about you guys.”

This starts the playful mood.

“If you insist...” Kiba starts, “Maybe you’re wondering who’s the strongest among us, then I’ll let you know it’s me!”

Shikamaru snorts. Then a round of complaints were voiced out. You don’t even know who says what anymore from the way most of them talked altogether.

In the beginning they were talking about their individual progress and development which then somehow turned to praising another person’s abilities and then started the debate of which team was the best.

Each of them had their own areas of expertise and they promised to help train with you if and when you needed them to. It was an offer you couldn’t really reject, not when they insist on it to prove that they’re the best. Not to mention they were all fired up and were being competitive about it. Even those who seemed like quiet and reserved ones like Hinata, Shino, and Neji were in on it although they were a little bit reluctant than the rest.

For the rest of the night, you listened and laughed at their playful antics. Every now and then you joined in and teased them as well. And for the first time since you arrived in Konoha, you felt like you truly belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I don't really proof read? 😂


	6. Books... and Team Kurenai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind this chapter was supposed to include her time training with each and every team but my hands slipped and before I knew it, it became longer than expected so I could only work with Team Kurenai... 
> 
> I'm sorry in advance if there are words spelled wrongly or if there's grammatical errors. English really isn't my first language. That, and I don't proofread at all. 😫

You hate to admit it but you had more fingers than friends. But that was before you got to Konoha. Somehow before the night ended, everyone there had considered you to be a friend. They had even treated you like they had known you their whole life. It was quite a foreign feeling. But it felt nice, heartwarming even.

But you would be lying if you said you didn’t feel overwhelmed. You have been so used to spending time with only your family that it feels weird to have so many people around you. Sure, you faced tons of people when you helped your father sell products but they were just temporary. You couldn’t even remember most of their faces. But now that you’re going to live here, you’d have to see them almost daily, it was overwhelming.

That’s why you had purposely avoided main streets the day after that eventful dinner. You wanted to avoid them at all costs, at least for that day. The task wasn’t really that hard considering most of them were assigned with missions the very next day, while some had decided to continue their training.

Despite Konoha having many training grounds, training was out of the plan due to your injuries. As an alternative, you decided to go to the library after your classes at the academy. At first it was just because of your curiosity, you wondered what type of books they kept there. But when you stumbled upon a book about the different clans in Konoha, you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching for it and burying your nose in it. If one of the staff didn’t inform you that the library was about to close, you wouldn’t even know how late it had gotten.

The second day after the dinner, you no longer wanted to avoid your new friends so you started walking through the main streets again. Much to your dismay, there weren’t any signs that they were in the village. So you resigned to going back to the library and reading the same book again to continue where you left off. 

You were naturally curious about the people around you so you read about those who you’ve already met.

In three days’ time, you were able to know more about your new friends and their families, alongside their jutsus. You felt weird though, because you had to resign to reading about them instead of asking them yourself. The new found knowledge felt superficial to say the least.

Besides the information about your friends, you had also read up more about the Senju clan. _The clan with a thousand skills_ , it said. But you focused on information about your great grandfather Tobirama.

Among the interesting information you learned about him was his ability to perform techniques with only one hand seal, his ability to accurately detect the presence and location of people by merely touching the ground with his finger, his ability to identify someone’s ancestry just by their chakra signature alone, and lastly, his ability to perform genjutsu that was too hard to dispel even for someone with Kage level.

He sounded like someone who’s too good to be true that you wondered why Lady Tsunade thought you were very much like him. Despite her expectations, you were motivated to train harder after learning all of these.

Based on the book you’ve read, in order to be able to perform complex techniques with just one hand seal, one must have advanced chakra control. The thought of being able to use the Water Dragon Jutsu with just one hand seal made you excited, considering it was one of the techniques that required a lot of hand signs. The more you thought about it, however, the more it made you wonder if it’s actually possible to perform a jutsu with a single hand. That would be extremely helpful if you were to get tied up somehow in a mission.

The next thing you focused on was Tobirama’s sensory skills. You had never thought about trying to sense people’s presence by touching the ground. The first thought that came to your mind when you read about it was how _creative_ it was. You assumed it must have something to do with someone’s chakra frequency and its direct contact to the ground. You weren’t exactly sure but it’s highly likely. Your mother hasn’t really trained you with your sensory skills that much, only teaching you how to switch from sensory mode to fight mode and vice versa. So you make it one of your top priorities.

As for being able to identify someone’s lineage through their chakra signature, you would have to give up on that. Mainly because you weren’t even familiar with _that_ many people to know about such a thing. It was just impossible for you.

Regarding Tobirama’s ability to perform genjutsu, you figured it was extremely hard to do, especially if even a Kage couldn’t counter it. To begin with, you only know the basics of casting a genjutsu. Your timing was always off back then so if you were to surpass Tobirama, you had to train so much more. Your lack of proficiency was due to the fact that your mother insisted you master your sensory skills first before she would train you on how to expertly use genjutsu. And since a couple of weeks ago, you weren’t really at the same caliber yet as your mother, although your range had significantly improved.

All these thoughts were running in your mind by the time you had left the library. Normally, this much knowledge would make your head hurt, but surprisingly, it didn’t. It gave you a weird kind of calm. Maybe because by the time you arrived home, you had managed to make a mental list of the things you had to work on and improve.

Before, you didn’t even know where to start in order to become stronger but now you had an idea. Having this list meant you’d know what to do instead of the loose “train harder” term. Although a list wasn’t something that amounts much, to you it was the beginning. And it made you look forward to the next day when you could actually train again.

When Friday came, the first thing you did was check up on the status of your injuries. You had almost screamed and jumped after finding out your cracked bone had been fully healed together with your internal injuries. The gash on your leg was healed two days ago and if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t have thought you were stabbed because of the lack of scars.

You were in high spirits that you had leaped on your way to the Academy. You even arrived earlier than usual since you no longer had to bandage yourself. But just like the other days in the Academy, not much really happened aside from you diligently taking notes and listening to the instructors.

Before you knew it, your class had been dismissed and your excitement for training had increased tenfold. Your priority would be improving your sensory skills and you know just the right people to help you: Team Kurenai.

You were hoping you’d find them at the training grounds that they briefly mentioned as their “regular place” during the dinner you had with them. If they weren’t around or if they were on a mission… then… you’d had to delay your sensory skills training by nighttime when your mother could train you. The thought slightly dampened your mood. But you weren’t going home just yet if they weren’t there, instead, you’d just have to work on increasing your chakra reserves by physical training and exercise.

Speaking as a medical nin, your alternative isn’t really ideal, considering you just healed from your injuries, but you had no other choice. You weren’t just going to wait and do nothing. Who knows when the Akatsuki would make their next move? You had to prove that you’ve become stronger before then, so that they’d allow you to go on missions involving that organization and then find an opportunity to kill the person who murdered your father.

The reason you had to increase your chakra reserves was because you need enough of it even before attempting to perform jutsus with only one hand seal. You’re aware of how hard ninjutsu is and how long it could take before one could master a technique. Not to mention the amount of chakra that would be consumed as you trained.

Mastering the Water Dragon jutsu was hard enough with using the series of hand seals it came with, but you could only imagine how harder it is to perform it with only one hand seal, not to mention the concentration and the chakra control it would take. Fortunately for you, you have highly advanced chakra control because you’re a medical nin. Despite that, there was no guarantee that you’d actually be able to do it.

You had been thinking about all of these in your mind as you walked. Needless to say, you were preoccupied so when you turned to a corner, you suddenly crashed against someone. You internally cursed yourself for being reckless. After that, you got up and immediately apologized to the person you crashed into, but they beat you to it.

“S-sorry!” You recognized the sound of the gentle voice. Hinata. She bowed her head in apology.

“Hinata! I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.”

When she heard your voice, she stood straight up. “Oh no, Y/N! I’m so s-sorry. A-are you okay? Y-your injury!” She stuttered.

“I’m fine. I’m completely healed now so don’t worry,” you assured her. “You seem to be in a rush, where are you headed?” You fell in step with her as she was going towards the same direction as you are.

“I’m running late for our training.” 

_Perfect_. ~~Not the late part of course.~~

“Do you… do you mind if I join you today?” You asked, hopeful.

She then looked at your direction and smiled. “We don’t mind.”

The next thing you knew, you were in front of Team Kurenai. Hinata, Kiba, and Shino introduced you to their team leader, Kurenai, who had long untamed black hair and pretty red eyes. They welcomed you easily after you told them your intention to improve your sensory skills.

But before that, Kurenai wanted to see your skills for herself first. “Call it a diagnostic test, if you may.”

When you agreed, she instructed the rest of the team to hide behind trees. She gave them the liberty to decide up to where they could go but told them not to move once they have their own hiding places. “This isn’t a catch-me-if-you-can drill. We just have to figure out her range that’s all,” she told her team.

When the three ninjas and Akamaru, Kiba’s dog, had jumped out of your sight, Kurenai had insisted you wait for at least ten minutes to give the rest time to go to their desired locations.

For the meantime, you kneeled down and then tried touching the ground with your forefinger, trying to know if you could sense them by that method. Kurenai was looking at you curiously as you did so, not knowing what you were planning on doing.

The moment your finger touched the ground, you didn’t feel anything. You frowned, thinking you’d be able to easily master sensing by that method but ultimately being proven wrong. But then again, you weren’t even trying hard enough yet since Kurenai sensei hasn’t given you the go signal.

You quickly shake your head, this was a test to check your current abilities. This wasn’t the time to go on trying to do stuff that you have no idea of doing yet. You’re going to have to focus on what you can currently do.

“Is there something wrong, Y/N?” Kurenai asks worriedly. In her eyes, you looked a little bit… troubled? Unfocused? She couldn’t really find the right word to describe what you looked like.

You immediately stood up and shaked your head. “I’m fine, sensei. I was just thinking of something, that’s all.”

“Right. You only have a minute left before this test starts, you may want to prepare yourself. Knowing them, Kiba might go a little overboard and hide the furthest, but don’t worry about that. It’s alright if you can’t find him or anyone at all.” Kurenai sensei was really gentle and nice. You’re not even part of their team but she treats you just as nicely.

“Okay.” You respond. Out of habit, you put on a defensive stance and then closed your eyes. You wait for Kurenai’s signal as you breathe evenly. 

“3, 2, 1. Start!”

You took one more deep inhale before kneading your chakra to sense everyone.

You count them with your fingers as you start to sense their presence.

_The nearest one was at 2 o’clock._

_One at 7 o’clock. A little bit further away was someone at 8 o’clock._

_There were two sources of chakra in the 5 o’clock direction._

Five in total excluding Kurenai sensei. You assumed one was a clone of some sorts, just something to keep you off guard. The other one was surely Akamaru.

By the time you opened your eyes, you headed to the nearest person. Kurenai sensei was trailing after you. That person’s location was approximately 50 meters from your location.

 _50 meters…_ Back when you started training your sensory skills, 50 meters was your limit but your mother trained you so hard that you increased your range to 10 kilometers. Surprisingly, just a few days ago, on the day where you first encountered Shikamaru, Ino, and Neji, you and your mother realized that you could now sense until 15 kilometers. A feat that surprised your mother considering her limit was 17 kilometers.

When you got nearer to the first person’s location, you grabbed a kunai and threw it on the three where the person was hiding. At the sound of the kunai hitting the tree, Hinata had stepped out of it. You nod your head at each other.

You debated on where to go next. Were you supposed to go to the chakra sources who were furthest in reference to your starting point or the other two figures at the 7 and 8 o’clock direction?

It doesn’t matter.

You proceeded to head on to the furthest chakra sources. The nearer you got to their location, the better you could tell that one of the two sources of chakra was Akamaru.

By the time you closed in on the distance, you grabbed another kunai and threw it at the two trees where Kiba and Akamaru were hiding. Kiba wasn’t really surprised that you found him and Akamaru, considering they had smelled your group approaching. But that doesn’t mean he expected you to find him so easily. He ran quite a distance from the starting point. Even further than Hinata’s Byakugan range which was currently at 10 kilometers.

“Are you sure you need more training?” He asked incredulously. “I could think of something more fun we could do.”

Your initial reaction after hearing his last statement was to look if Kurenai sensei heard him.

_Thank god she didn’t._

Oh but Hinata heard it. You could tell from the way she shifted and turned her head to avoid your eyes along with the subtle flush of her cheeks.

Quite frankly, you were amused at Kiba. It’s been so long since someone openly flirted with you. But you really weren’t looking for a relationship. Not when your current goal was to get stronger.

Besides, Kiba wasn’t really your type. If you’re being honest, you prefer smart and matured people. Not that you think Kiba is dumb, but he did act impulsive, short tempered, and a little bit immature during the dinner you had with everyone, something that puts you off.

“Come on, we still have two places to go to.” You said, completely disregarding Kiba’s statement.

“Two? Shino’s the only one left though.” Kurenai said.

You didn’t answer, you just started heading towards the locations of the two chakra sources. On the corner of your eye, you saw Hinata use her Byakugan to see what you’re talking about. Then a flash of recognition graced her face, understanding what you sensed.

After a couple of minutes, you grabbed a shuriken and threw it at a tree. A swarm of insects appeared behind it. Kiba shrieked, not expecting it, but he was quick to compose himself.

_Ah, so it wasn’t a clone. The insects were infused with chakra, that’s why you were able to sense it._

Wasting no time, you quickly went on to the last location. You didn’t even bother throwing a kunai or shuriken anymore. Ninja tools were expensive, after all, and you've used up a lot already. Instead, you sat on a branch adjacent to where Shino was hiding. He just nodded at your direction while you waved at him.

“Oi Shino, this is just a drill. Why did you have to use your insects?” Kiba asked immediately after.

“Kurenai sensei didn’t say I wasn’t allowed to. The reason why I did it —”

Kiba cuts him off, not letting him finish his sentence. He was already saying something about how it was unnecessary, you really weren’t listening.

You continued to stare at Shino. You went to him and nudged him then smiled, “What were you saying? Don’t worry, I’m listening.”

Shino looked taken aback. He was quite used to being cut off or ignored so to have someone actually wanting to hear what he has to say surprised him. “I was saying that I did it because I wanted to see if you would stop looking after you already sensed four chakras.”

“Fair enough,” you shrugged. “My mother used to throw me off guard with her clones when she trained my sensory skills so it’s no big deal.”

Hinata politely interrupts your conversation, “Uhm… Shino and Y/N, Kurenai sensei told us to go back to the clearing so Y/N can spar with us… They already went ahead.”

“Right.”

The three of you rushed out to catch up with Kurenai, Kiba, and Akamaru. By the time you reached the clearing, Kurenai instructed you to spar with them individually, except for Kiba who always fought together with Akamaru, with only a ten-minute break in between. You accepted without complaint although it was obvious the rest were worried considering it was kind of extreme coming from Kurenai sensei.

You understood why she wanted it to be that way. She knew the skills of her team. You were a stranger to her. If you wanted help with training then she has to understand what you can do. You thought it was even generous of her to give you a break in between sparring with her team considering no one gets to rest when they have to fight off ninjas for the sake of the mission.

You were all panting loudly by the end of the session. Each of them are individually talented. You could tell they were well trained from how well they moved and attacked. But that didn’t mean you were no good against them. In fact, you had won against all three of them thanks to the intense training your mother gave you when she taught you taijutsu, as well as the years you spent on mastering all the chakra natures.

“You know when you said you still had a lot to learn, I thought you really meant it,” Kiba said as he wiped the sweat on his forehead. “Now I understand why Ino reacted that way over dinner when you said you’re attending the Academy as a student.”

“Yeah, even Neji nii-san acknowledged your skills,” Hinata added.

Now this gets Kurenai’s attention. “You’re a student?” She asked incredulously.

“Yes sensei,” you said and then proceeded on telling her why knowing she’d question it next.

“That makes sense,” she replied although it sounded like she wasn’t really convinced. “So you mentioned your mother is a shinobi, who is she?”

“My mother is Taketori Kana.”

Hinata, Shino, and Kiba showed no signs of recognition at the mention of your mother’s name.

Kurenai, on the other hand, doesn’t even bother to hide her astonishment.

“K-Kana sensei is your mother?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm focusing on strengthening her bonds with everyone so there's going to be chapters dedicated to each team... But... like... that would mean it'll take much more time before Neji and Michiko actually become closer 😅 
> 
> The next chapter will start with more stories about Kana because she's really badass in my mind yk 😬
> 
> But thank you to everyone who's been reading this~


	7. Taketori Kana

“K-Kana sensei is your mother?”

“Yes?” You answered but it came out more like a question because you didn’t know why Kurenai looked too amazed.

“You know sensei, I’ve never seen you with that glint in your eyes. Not even when you’re with Asuma sensei,” Kiba teased her.

She flushed red at the comment as her group laughed at her. She cleared her throat and composed herself, “Well I suppose they didn’t teach you about her in the Academy,” then she faced you, “and she didn’t tell you about her life as a shinobi of the Leaf.”

All of you nodded at her.

“Let me tell you what I know about her,” she said as she raises her right hand and forefinger, as if she was going to tell a tale.

“This is so out of character for sensei,” you heard Kiba whisper to which Shino and Hinata silently agreed.

“It was said that Kana sensei was the best kunoichi in their generation. But as shinobi, she was always second to the Fourth Hokage when they were in the Academy.

“She would always hang around the Legendary Sannins when they were training. Lady Tsunade adored her and so the rest of the Sannins became close to her as well. It got to a point where they would take turns in teaching her different techniques. Because of that, she was promoted to Chunin just a few months after she became a Genin. Then the Second Shinobi War came...

“The ninjas of her generation weren't allowed to participate because they were still too young back then. She was an exception though, because she knew medical ninjutsu. Back then there weren’t really much medical nins so they were very important.

“Naturally, she wasn’t allowed in the frontlines, but that doesn’t mean she had it easy. In fact, the medics had it the hardest. People after people kept coming to get treated, they were easily outnumbered. Even their chakra reserves became too low too fast. Some say they only survived through eating food pills.” Her voice was laced in sadness as she told the story. You could only imagine how hard it was to be in such a position.

“At one point, some of the enemies had infiltrated their camp. Medics were already exhausted and the ninjas in that camp were those who were injured. Some of the survivors thought that it was going to be their end that day because it was obvious that they were in no shape to put up a fight but Kana sensei stepped up. She trapped the assailants in a genjutsu to render them immobile then she attacked using senbons aimed at their vital spots. She was only… probably around twelve that time. She saved nearly a hundred people that night.

“When the Second Shinobi War ended, Konoha had suffered great losses. She then was promoted to Jonin for her contribution during the war, the first in their batch at that. From then she was assigned more missions because 1) a lot of shinobis had died in battle and 2) because Konoha had to accept more missions to recover from the losses. Rumor says that she successfully completed most of her missions, only once or twice did she fail. I heard that everyone wanted to team up with her because no one ever went back from a mission severely injured when she was part of a team, no matter the rank of the mission.

“Later on she would leave the village with her father to further her training. By the time they were done with her training and had come back to Konoha, she was assigned as a leader to a genin team — Yuuta, Mamoru, and Shi were her students. I graduated from the Academy with them. The three were pretty average when we graduated. But somehow when they trained under Kana sensei they drastically improved, and in only a short matter of time. No one really knows how she did it but they said her training methods were, uh, unique.”

You hum in confirmation. You’ve travelled to a lot of villages already and have seen how ninjas train but none of them do it like your mother does.

“When you say unique, what does that mean?” Shino asked no one in particular but everyone suddenly looked at your direction considering you were the only one there who could answer it.

You were surprised by their sudden shift of attention to you that you choked on air. When you were done with your coughing fit, amused smiles were playing on their lips. You could only guess how red your ears were from the way you could feel it burning up. “I, uh, I… Where do I even start?” You cleared your throat. “Uhm… Unique is a way to describe her training methods, but I kinda prefer the word  _ creative _ .” You awkwardly said. “Uhm, say for example training for sensory skills… When my mother trained my sensory skills, it started to be pretty normal. She explained the concept first and then told me how to do it. Next was a demonstration. Then trials on my part. When I got to know how it should feel, she put a blindfold on me to test me. It was initially pretty basic, just her standing somewhere and me pointing to her location. When that was done, she would move around, slowly at first then gradually increasing her speed, each time instructing me to sense her whereabouts. The last step was for me to counter and defend myself while blindfolded as she attacked. And if that wasn’t hard enough, she scolds me when I try to use my sense of hearing.”

Hinata’s eyes widened at that while Shino had his brows furrowed. Kiba looked at you incredulously, “What? Is that even possible?”

You shrugged. “I’m assuming it is but right now I’m not really that good at it yet… I mean, I could sense her, sure, but my problem was shifting from sensory mode to fighting mode,” you frowned. “My mother teaches me things I need to know in extreme situations. When I asked her about why I had to train that way, she told me there were ninjas who are well versed in Silent Killing so it was important to be able to master sensing them by using chakra instead of my sight and hearing, and to defend myself at times like those.”

Kurenai placed her forefinger and thumb on her chin, pondering. Then she hummed at your explanation thinking it was a brilliant method of learning. Kana didn’t set a standard too high in the beginning and when you finally got the hang of the basics, she slowly increased the level of difficulty and then provided a situation where you could apply the technique. Brilliant, considering some of the younger generations easily gave up on doing things they don’t think they need.

“Can you tell us more?”

You pause, thinking of other instances that your mother had you doing. “She taught me Shurikenjutsu pretty much the regular way as well, starting with kunai and shurikens. But since she was a medical nin, she always had senbons with her to perform acupuncture and to use as weapons. So she focused on teaching me how to efficiently use this for immobilization or for, uh, killing.

“The metal needles actually have little killing power but with proper knowledge about the human body, you can aim for vital spots to kill your target. You can also aim for chakra points so you can disrupt their chakra flow, although it’s very difficult to master since the chakra points are very small.”

“Yeah, chakra points are just the size of the tip of a needle and only the Byakugan is able to see it,” Hinata said.

“Not even the Sharingan can see it,” Shino shared.

“Right, but if you know about acupuncture, you’d know how to locate the chakra points,” you explained. “Since the chakra points are very small, it’s important that you can accurately hit them which is especially hard if your target is moving. If your aim is a little bit off, even for just a millimeter, it won’t do much damage, unlike when you use a kunai or shuriken. Conversely, there are also some chakra points located extremely near vital spots so if your intention is immobilization but your aim is off, you could accidentally kill your target. With that being said, she trained me to accurately hit a specific spot on moving targets, specifically eyes of fish.”

They were seriously listening to you so they had a focused facial expression. It took them a while to process what you’ve said and when they did, their reaction was comical — eyes wide, mouths dropped open, and a collective “Ehh?”

You couldn’t help but giggle at them. “I wish I was lying but I’m not! One day she bought two buckets of fish and then she told me to meet up with her by the riverbank on the outskirts of some town I don’t remember anymore. When we met there, she told me to aim for the fish’s eyes while they were in the water. She freed the fish on the river, used water style to increase the current and she had me chasing and aiming for their eyes.

“After a few hours of training that way, she’d collect the fish and inspect them. It was really hard, it took me a couple of months to master. Not to mention we had to eat fish for the whole time,” you shivered at the memory while it was Team Kurenai’s turn to laugh at you. “And when I was finally able to master it, she had me practice it on her. That’s when I kinda faltered a bit… Although senbons aren’t really as deadly as using a kunai or shuriken, it was still dangerous, one wrong move could hit a vital spot and I could’ve... I could’ve killed her but she had a lot of faith in me so I tried the best I can.”

There was a moment of silence again after you told the story. Then Kiba breaks it by saying, “That’s intense.” Everyone agreed.

“But my favorite part of training would always be the simulation that happens every end of the month,” you smiled, trying to lighten up the suddenly gloomy atmosphere.

“Simulation?” Kurenai sensei asked, her brows furrowed.

“Yeah, she gives me situations and then sees what I would do in those circumstances.”

“How?” Shino asked.

“Genjutsu.”

They all looked bewildered, except Kurenai sensei who looked like she was thinking hard.

“Since I wasn’t really officially a shinobi, there wouldn’t be any chances of me learning through missions. You know what they say, ‘ _ Experience is the best teacher _ ,’ right? She makes up for this by casting genjutsu on me…

“Personally, I like this because it helps me come up with strategies and tactics on what to do in a certain situation. Although, being in a genjutsu means that everything is just an illusion and my  _ ‘experiences’ _ are nothing but superficial. Besides, everything is controlled when you’re under a genjutsu, but that isn’t always the case in real life. Sometimes there are variables that we couldn’t really control. That’s why I only know what happens in missions by theory, and that’s why I think I still have a lot to learn.”

“I think you’re doing well so far, Y/N,” Kurenai sensei said softly.

Her team members nodded in agreement. You only smiled at them.

You’re still feeling quite bashful from taking other’s attention for extended periods of time, so you tried to subtly shift the attention elsewhere, “So sensei, what happened to my mother’s students?”

“Right, Team 1… They were the only group where every member was promoted to Chunin. Aside from them, only Kakashi was promoted in our batch. Shortly after they were promoted, however, she was recruited to the ANBU.

“Then years later, the Third Shinobi War started. During that time, Konoha still hadn't fully recovered from the Second War so they could only send out a few numbers of ninjas per squad. They had to deploy us as well because of the lack of manpower.

“Kana sensei was a leader of a squad with ten shinobis under her. They were supposed to push through to the Hidden Stone Village. Yuuta, Mamoru, and Shi weren’t under her command considering the mission of Kana sensei’s squad was quite risky…” Kurenai cleared her throat, “Have you guys ever been to the Hidden Stone Village?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, it’s near the Hidden Sand Village so the location was mostly dry land and no vegetation. Kana sensei’s squad was able to reach a location in between the Hidden Sand and Hidden Stone where they were attacked by shinobi from the Hidden Stone.

“In the beginning, they were doing quite well but they weren’t aware that the enemies had recouped after hearing that Kana sensei was the squad leader. The Hidden Stone sent out a platoon of nearly a hundred ninjas to counter her squad. That’s when things got out of hand. 

“The Hidden Stone shinobi naturally thought they were about to win because of their numbers but Kana sensei… She was really powerful. She was able to enter Sage Mode with the help of some of her squad members who covered for her as she gathered natural energy. But one by one the members of Kana sensei’s squad died… The Sage Mode, however, gave her enough power to flood a whole portion of land in a location that had absolutely no sources of water. This effectively killed the whole platoon of the enemy. Because of that she gained the title ‘ _ Konoha’s Legendary Blue Pearl _ .’

“But with no more squad members, she wouldn’t be able to infiltrate the Hidden Stone Village so she retreated back to Konoha. It was unfortunate that no one came back with her alive, still though, she collected their bodies and brought them back to Konoha.

“By the time she arrived back at Konoha, the war had begun turning to Konoha’s favor because of the destruction of the Kannabi Bridge by Team Minato. But during that time as well she found out that the war had taken the lives of not only her students but also her parents…

“When the war ended, she was recognized as one of the strongest ninjas in Konoha. Kana sensei, along with Minato sensei, Orochimaru-sama, and Jiraiya-sama were candidates for the position of Fourth Hokage. Both Jiraiya-sama and Kana sensei expressed their refusal for the position. In the end, Minato sensei was declared the Fourth Hokage.

“She resumed as an ANBU squad leader then. I heard recently from Kakashi that apparently she was his leader when he served at the ANBU. Since the Black Ops are very secretive, I hadn’t heard from her much. But the next thing I knew, she was given permission to leave Konoha and travel.

“When Konoha had been attacked by Orochimaru, some jonins were assigned to track her and bring her back to Konoha but there were no traces of her at all. So it was a surprise when Jiraiya-sama sent a hawk informing Lady Tsunade that he was able to locate the both of you.”

After hearing your mother’s story, you understood why Kurenai sensei had that glint in her eyes at the mention of your mother’s name. Even her team members were equally amazed at her. You were too, at some extent. It was, after all, a story of her power, achievements, hardships, and losses. But you always knew she was extraordinarily good.

But the story gave your mother another depth that you hadn’t known. You always assumed she was  _ that _ strong because she diligently trains. Although your assumption was partly true, you weren’t aware of the incidents that made her stronger. For that, you’re holding her with greater regards.

“So, now back to our business,” Kurenai sensei cut off your train of thoughts, “regarding my evaluation on your skills…”

You perked up at that. You had to find out what you’re currently lacking from the perspective of others, because despite the mental list of skills you had to work on, there might be other things that you might have missed out on.

“Contrary to your belief, I think you’re doing well with the way you shift from sensory mode to fighting mode given that you were able to counter or dodge attacks from behind, even if your eyes were focused elsewhere. However, the problem was your reaction time. It wasn’t really noticeable at first because you move quite fast, but there were moments where you’d miss a beat so you shift your body a second late, hence the minor cuts on the back of your legs, but that could be easily remedied by training more.

“Now the second thing I noticed was that you’re hesitating sometimes. Like that time when you were able to get behind Kiba, it was obvious you saw an opening to attack, but you didn’t and you waited until he noticed you there. It’s either you’re holding back because you didn’t want to hurt him or you’re overthinking too much.”

You tensed, “I-I-I…” You wanted to deny it, to say anything to disprove her statement, but no words were coming out from your mouth.

Kiba groaned, “This was supposed to be an assessment, you shouldn’t be holding back.”

Kurenai nodded, then she pointed towards a tree, “Y/N, I want to see your strength. Can you punch that tree?”

You stood up to oblige but Kiba’s words kept repeating itself in your mind. “ _ You shouldn’t be holding back _ .” You breathed in and focused your chakra on your fist. You did this a lot with your mother so your movement was all muscle memory. With precise and practiced movements, you brought your fist to the tree. And the tree snapped into half.

“That’s amazing. She’s as strong as Sakura.” Hinata expressed her awe.

Kiba’s mouth had dropped open once again, “On second thought, maybe it was right that you held back.”

Everyone laughed at him for suddenly retracting his statement. 

“See, your execution was great. You should’ve done that when you were battling Kiba. We could always send him to the hospital if he breaks a bone or two.” Kurenai said.

“Sensei!” Kiba whined as Kurenai laughed at his antics.

“But on a more serious note, the things I pointed out could be easily resolved by training. We’d gladly help you out on that. We can also incorporate your mother’s training methods as well. I’m pretty sure everyone will benefit from training with you.”

“Thank you sensei,” you bowed in gratitude.

Not much happened after that, Kurenai just gave some tips on how to improve your skills. She instructed each of you to meet up the next day after lunch to start the training and then you all parted ways.

It was around seven in the evening when you got home and there was no sign of your mother. You figured she had her own business to attend to so you went straight to your room. You were already reaching for your night clothes when you retracted your hands, suddenly thinking of whether or not you should spend a few more hours doing physical exercise.

It wasn’t that late so you could still workout for two to three hours with the intent to increase your chakra levels. But it was Friday and you already spent hours with Team Kurenai…  _ No _ , you shake your head,  _ you shouldn’t be slacking off _ . It was imperative to train harder. You mustn’t lose sight of your goal: get the justice that your father deserves… or  _ deserved _ .

You decided to eat dinner, rest a while, and then head out to exercise. For a moment you felt a little bit guilty for overworking your body when it just healed. If your father was still alive, you’re pretty sure he’d scold you for this but he just wasn’t around anymore. And that’s the reason why you’re doing this. It was for his and your mother’s peace. Maybe it was even for the village too but that was a completely different discussion.

  
  



	8. Hospital

You woke up to the sound of the birds chirping. This must’ve been the only day you woke up so peacefully ever since you came to Konoha. You attributed this to the fact that you didn’t have to rush to prepare for the Academy. But that doesn’t mean it was a perfect morning.

It could’ve been a perfect morning, really, except you could feel your muscles aching even with just a little movement. It was entirely your fault though. You may have subjected your body to an intense workout late last night.

You grunted as you rose from your bed. You didn’t have any plans until after lunch so you debated on whether you should just stay in bed until then or walk around the village again. If your body had a mind of its own, it would’ve chosen the former option. But quite frankly, you weren’t used to getting up late and staying in bed.

Your father raised you to be up early. “ _ The key to success in life is getting up early _ ,” he’d say, although you always thought he just read that somewhere. But he ingrained it to you at such an early age that you couldn’t really get the routine out of your system anymore.

You got out of bed and headed into the kitchen for breakfast. When you heard the sound of something being fried, you almost ran to get there, thinking it was your father preparing breakfast. He used to be the one in the family who cooked breakfast while your mother was the one who’d prepare dinner. 

As you reached the door frame, you realized that your father wasn’t there anymore.  _ He wouldn’t be there anymore _ . You felt your shoulder sag at the thought.

You quickly put on a smile though, just as your mother turned around to greet you. “How are you feeling, darling?” She asked while she placed the food she prepared onto a plate.

“I’m fully healed from the injuries, if that’s what you’re asking,” you grinned as you pushed your thoughts about your father to the back of your mind, “but I may or may not have aching muscles because of some physical exercise I did last night.” You sheepishly said.

She tsked. “You should really set some limits for yourself.”

You opened your mouth to rebut but she beat you to it, “And no, training or working out until your body gives up is not the limit I’m referring to.”

You sighed and then remained silent. If you told her you don’t plan on wasting your time slacking off, you know she’d give you an earful of scolding, probably about “ _ Resting is not slacking off _ ” or something in the lines of “ _ You’re rushing too much _ .”

You knew she was right, but you couldn’t help but feel like there’s a ticking clock looming over your head, like there’s only so much time before the Akatsuki makes their move or worse, the serial killer who killed your father kills another innocent life. You just couldn’t let these thoughts go and it haunts you every time.

“So what are your plans for today?” Your mother asked, oblivious to the thoughts plaguing your mind.

“I’ll be training with Kurenai sensei and her team later after lunch. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “maybe I’d drop by Tsunade to help her or something. That woman’s really lazy, I bet she’s swamped with work.”

“I feel like you’re the only one who could get away with saying things like that about the Hokage,” you chuckled.

She snorted, “I could name a few other people.” She watched you as you took a bite out of your food. She then rested her chin by her hand. “So, is Kurenai going to teach you genjutsu?”

You looked up from your meal and gazed at your mother. “She knows genjutsu?” You excitedly asked.

She smiled at your reaction, “Yes. I heard she’s become Konoha’s number one genjutsu user.”

“That’s great! I’ll try asking her to teach me then. I don't really know what Kurenai sensei has planned but I'm assuming it has something to do with improving our sensory skills and some fighting techniques.”

Your mother just hummed in response. She wouldn’t tell you this, but she was glad you were opening up and making friends. She was worried that you’d push away people ever since she saw you ready to attack Kakashi when he tried approaching you for the first time. Although she did know it was partially her fault for teaching you not to trust someone easily. But she was just grateful that you complied with her request easily when she told you that it was okay to trust people in Konoha. You were always obedient like that, always following your parents’ pleas as long as they’re reasonable. Besides that, your mother was grateful for your rationality and maturity, it meant there were less things to worry about when it came to you. If you grew up the opposite of who you are right now, she doesn’t think she’d have the capacity to handle you by herself.

Both you and your mother finished breakfast making small talk. You offered to wash the dishes while your mother started to get ready to go to Lady Tsunade. When she was out the door, you had already resigned to your bedroom.

The atmosphere was silent. And you couldn’t stop your thoughts from flooding your mind, all about your father — memories with him, the what ifs, the what could’ve beens. You could tell your thoughts were going to dangerous territory fast. But you still don’t know how to deal with the emotions that come with those thoughts.

So instead of lying in bed and letting your thoughts consume you, you headed to the shower and then got out of the house after you finished dressing up. It was better for you to have something else to do in order to redirect your mind from the path of negativity.

Were you running away from your problem? Maybe. Will you stop doing it anytime soon? No, not really.

When you got out of the house, you really didn’t know where you’d want to go but when you started to feel the aching of your muscles replacing the aching on your chest, you decided to head to the Hospital. Not to ask for assistance, rather to  _ offer _ assistance.

Just as you were about to ask the nurse in the Information section about the whereabouts of Sakura, a voice had called upon you.

“Y/N! What are you doing here? Do you need to get checked up on your injuries?” Sakura asked.

“Oh no. I was just looking for you. I was wondering if there’s anything I could help you with,” you said. You looked around the hospital, noticing the lack of patients, “...but I guess there’s nothing here to do. The day must be slow and quiet, huh?”

As you uttered the last sentence, Sakura’s eyes widened in horror.

“What? Why? Did I say something wrong?” You immediately asked, worried that you might’ve offended her without meaning to.

Before Sakura could answer, a shinobi burst through the doors carrying what seemed to be injured civilians. “Fire on the residential area of civilians!” The ninja shouted as he entered the Hospital with two elderly civilians with first degree burns. Nothing life threatening, but medical care was free and accessible so there was no reason to turn them away.

“It’s forbidden to say the q-word… This is why,” Sakura said as she rushed to treat one of the civilians.

“Sorry!” You exclaimed while going to the other civilian.

The morning went on like that — Sakura, you, and the other medical nins treating the victims of the fire. Their conditions range from minor burns to life threatening ones like asphyxiation.

Just when the influx of patients slowed down, Neji pushed through the doors of the Hospital carrying a crying baby on his left arm. The right sleeve of his kimono-shirt had been completely burnt and his right arm was left with what seems to be a second degree burn.

Sakura rushed to aid the baby, “I’ll treat the baby, Y/N go look after Neji.”

You nodded and immediately went to Neji’s side. Your hands started glowing a faint shade of green as you used medical ninjutsu on him. “What happened to you?” You asked softly.

“I was near the area when the fire had happened. Fortunately, most of the civilians living in the area were out of their homes when the fire started. Meanwhile, those who stayed in their homes had been rescued by the time I got there, except for the baby. I saw them on the third floor of the building and rushed to rescue them. The whole floor was almost completely consumed by the fire so the other shinobis probably were not able to properly check for civilians there.” His voice was leveled but his eyes gave away his pain from the way they were slightly twitching every now and then.

You noticed him trying not to wince. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s fine.”

You frowned. In all honesty, speaking as a medical nin, you dislike it when people lied about their condition when you could tell just how grave their injuries were.

Like that one time around two years ago when you found a boy your age unconscious in some forest with most of his bones broken and a lot of internal injuries along with wounds on his hands.

It was a miracle he was still alive after all that damage to his body. You healed him from noon until sundown, but just enough for his internal injuries to function. You even had to call off your training with your mother that night because you used too much chakra. But instead of telling your mother the truth, you just told her you simply weren’t feeling well. Lucky for you, she trusted your medical abilities that she didn’t probe your condition further, otherwise she’d know that you’re actually not unwell and grill you about why your chakra levels were too low.

When the stranger you met in the forest gained consciousness after two hours of your healing, he was ready to strike you so you had to incapacitate him, after that, you resumed healing him. When he calmed down, you asked him what happened but he refused to tell you. In the end you just asked how he was feeling to which he lied through his teeth.

It was quite obvious that Neji was doing the same. But since you did exactly the same thing when you had dinner with their group, you shouldn’t be one to talk, right? So instead of scolding him, you softened up your facial expression and murmured a soft thanks for his good deed.

Neji hadn’t expected you to thank him. His brows had furrowed, confused by the sudden gratitude when he’s the one who’s supposed to be thankful because you’re the one who’s healing him.

Besides, he was used to doing such things for the safety of the people. He doesn’t expect thanks from people anymore since he considered this act normal. But he wouldn’t deny the fact that it was refreshing to hear someone thank him for something that didn’t involve missions.

He released a hum to acknowledge that he heard you and then mumbled a soft, “It’s no big deal… And thank you as well. For healing me, that is.”

All throughout this conversation, you had only been staring at his burnt skin as you worked on it. You knew how painful burns could be first hand since your mother used Fire Release jutsu on you plenty of times back when you were a child and you couldn’t dodge everything on time. So you felt bad for Neji and wanted to help ease the pain a little.

“Is it okay if I try something?” You looked up at him. He was already facing you. It took so much effort not to gasp. He looked really good, especially up close. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find him attractive. You tried to will away the blood that’s rushing to your face but to no avail so you instantly looked back to his injured arm hoping that he wasn’t able to see your cheeks slightly tinted pink.

“Sure.” He said in his usual stoic manner.

Your left hand then started to glow a darker shade of green. Neji remained silent and he had closed his eyes. His brows were no longer furrowed and he  _ almost _ looked relaxed. 

Sakura had finished treating the baby and came to your side. She noticed the differing shades of your hands. “What are you doing Y/N?”

Both Neji and Sakura directed their gaze to you with a questioning look. “Well, I was incorporating Wind style with my medical ninjutsu to give off a cooling sensation as I work on his burns.” You explained.

_ “Ah, so that’s why it doesn’t feel as painful as it was before _ ,” Neji thought.

Sakura was impressed. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

“I learned medical ninjutsu from my mother but incorporating different chakra natures with it was kind of my idea, I guess,” you explained. “Burns typically feel painful, except of course third degree burns because nerve damage could make you feel numb. So I thought it would be nice if we can do something to relieve the pain of first to second degree burns even just a little bit. Painkillers aren’t necessarily always available, especially during missions or so I’m told.”

Sakura smiled, to her it felt like it was the longest thing you’ve said without stuttering, and with confidence. It was as if you were in the  _ zone _ . Then, without missing a beat, she nodded. “That’s amazing. But doesn’t that require more intricate chakra control?” She was genuinely curious.

You felt flustered after her question. You don’t know why but it makes you shy to admit your talent with chakra control was impeccable. In fact, any form of admittance regarding your skill makes you feel awkward. Not to mention you weren’t sure how to handle compliments from anyone other than your parents.

Adding the Wind Nature to medical ninjutsu could be quite tricky considering you have to put exactly the right amount of chakra for it to take effect in the way you want it to, say for example you want to give a cooling sensation. If you go overboard, there’s a possibility of affecting the blood circulation in the body. If you use too little, there wouldn’t be any noticeable effect, so essentially you’re just expending chakra for nothing. It’s especially risky when you do this while healing major organs because a sudden change in the body temperature could affect the function of the organs.

Although you were embarrassed to admit your skill, you were tempted to explain the concept in detail. By nature, you’re shy when meeting new people and it takes time for you to reveal your bubbly personality but you do have your “ _ moments _ ” where your timidness disappears when you explain how things work.

This time, however, you held your tongue, you didn’t want to overwhelm them with information. That, and well, let’s just say sometimes when you talk about things like this, people would look at you weirdly so you avoid explaining details out loud.

You cleared your throat and settled with saying, “Uhm, well, maybe a little.”

Needless to say, Neji was intrigued by you. One minute you were thanking him for doing something trivial, the next you were passionately talking about your advanced medical ninjutsu and then you were back to your usual demure self. Your personality was confusing but also interesting. _Can a person really have that many sides?_

Sakura gave you a look, waiting for an explanation but your eyes caught sight of the clock on the wall. You realized you stayed in the hospital longer than expected and you were going to be late if you don’t go now, considering you still have to get lunch.

“I’m sorry, Sakura, I’m late for my training with Team Kurenai. I’ll drop by tomorrow again!” You told her. Then you faced Neji, “Sorry, Neji, I have to go. I did the best I can.”

“It’s alright, Y/N. I’ll finish this,” Sakura said, referring to treating Neji’s arm.

You said your apologies once again and rushed out the door quickly before the two could properly say goodbye. They looked at each other and shrugged.

Sakura focused her attention on Neji’s burn. She wasn’t really that close with Neji so they remained silent after you left. “There’s only a small patch of skin that needs healing,” she informed him. “Y/N healed the entirety of your arm so quickly and flawlessly.”

Sakura was impressed at your skill although she didn’t voice it out. “ _ Her chakra control is perfect and she works efficiently. She even has the opportunity to talk and chat while healing when most wouldn’t be able to do so. She’s obviously very skilled. Was she truly not a shinobi before? How did she live as a civilian with such skills? _ ” She thought.

* * *

Technically you weren’t late for the training. In fact, you arrived exactly on time. But by your standards and your father’s standards, that was considered late. Your father taught you about always coming earlier than the set time to show respect to the people you’re meeting. It was more about valuing the time of others really.

Surprisingly, Kiba was the one who was late this time, but not by much. You observed that the rest of the team weren’t really bothered by it, either they were used to this or they were just simply patient.

When Kiba and Akamaru arrived, Kurenai sensei didn’t waste any time. She was quick to inform you about the tasks you were supposed to do individually. She prepared four obstacle courses for the four of you. Each course was designed to specifically cater to the person’s weaknesses and to improve on one’s strengths. You were impressed she had the time to come up with this within a short period of time.

“Kiba and Akamaru please face the North direction for your obstacle course. Hinata, face the East direction. Shino, South and Y/N West. At the end of the training course, a scroll is waiting for you. Retrieve the scroll, open it, and then destroy it after getting the information. Keep your mind and body alert. Head back here and relay what the scroll had in it. You have until sunset to finish everything.” Kurenai sensei said as she looked at all of you. Determination was painted on all of your faces. “Are you ready?”

“Yes sensei,” everyone collectively exclaimed.

“Start!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually did a lot of research to come up with a part of this chapter. 😅 Is this real? Me? Doing research? 😆
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for those who are reading this! Please let me know your thoughts so far~
> 
> Have a wonderful day!


	9. Ninjutsu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoy this chapter~

Shino was the first one to arrive at the clearing while you came there a few minutes later. By the time you arrived, a small smile had found its way to Kurenai sensei’s face.

“Genjutsu,” was what you’ve said while you panted. “Written in the scroll was a genjutsu formula and the word ‘Red.’”

She nodded, her smile growing wider. “Both of you did great,” she told the two of you.

She let you and Shino catch your breaths before she faced you, “I predicted Shino to be the first to finish the training because he doesn’t get affected by genjutsu. But you know, I wasn’t expecting you to arrive so soon after him,” she mused.

You tilted your head in confusion. “Soon?” You repeated. You only spared an hour from the time slot she gave. If anything, soon should mean finishing the whole thing by an hour.

“Yes, soon. Let’s just say yours was the hardest.”

You didn’t react at all to the revelation. You knew the obstacle course was hard. You barely had time to breathe at all, hence, the panting. You were lucky you were left unscathed.

“And you know, not everyone can determine whether or not they’re under a genjutsu, much less break free from it. But I guess, you know how considering you’ve been actively trained using genjutsu.”

You nodded. “It took a lot of training to do that,” you said after taking a water bottle to drink.

Around five minutes before sunset, Hinata arrived at the clearing as well, but with a bleeding palm. She then proceeded to tell Kurenai sensei about the content of the scroll which was apparently the same as yours.

You, on the other hand, immediately rushed over to her side to perform medical ninjutsu.

“Are you alright?” You asked worriedly.

“I-I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just t-that I had to b-break out of the g-genjutsu.” 

“The Byakugan can’t do that?”

She shook her head. “It allows us to decipher whether or not we are under genjutsu, but it doesn’t give us the power to break it.”

That made sense to you. With her visual prowess, it’ll be easy to notice the slight differences between illusions and reality. Although knowing you’re under a genjutsu doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get out of it.

“Come on, let’s find where Kiba and Akamaru are,” Kurenai said, “We’ll talk about how well you did in the obstacle courses when we get to him.”

You all nodded and headed to the North.

It was amazing how many traps Kiba and Akamaru didn’t set off so all of you had to dodge and evade a lot of paper bombs and kunai knives thrown in your direction. The obstacle course wasn’t as hard as yours but still, all of you, with the exception of Kurenai sensei, were already tired from the training, hence, your paces were a little bit slower than usual. Even Kurenai sensei doesn’t seem to mind your pace, after all, she didn’t want to strain yourselves.

By the time she saw Kiba and Akamaru, she went ahead and released him from the genjutsu he was under in. Kiba and Akamaru seemed to be bewildered for a few minutes at the sight of all of you. Kurenai sensei then explained to them the situation they were in.

Kiba groaned. “I failed, huh?” He said, still sprawled on the ground.

Kurenai sensei just nodded and then said, “Shino, Y/N, and Hinata were able to successfully finish their respective training courses. It was Shino who was able to finish first.”

“Of course he is, genjutsu doesn’t affect him at all,” Kiba mumbled under his breath.

“Y/N came in second with an hour to spare while Hinata arrived a few minutes before sunset,” Kurenai continued saying, not even pausing when Kiba mumbled. “As I’ve said before, the obstacle courses were  specifically made to cater to each person’s weaknesses and to improve on one’s strengths. Considering that you were all able to complete the obstacle course, it meant that your skills have considerably improved since the last time I trained you. Even Y/N exceeded my expectations despite her joining us recently.

“But the highlight of this training was the genjutsu... I’m aware genjutsu doesn’t work on Shino, that’s why I was expecting him to finish first.

“Because Shino isn’t affected by this, it’s an advantage to the team since he can release you from it by transferring chakra into you. However, if you were to somehow be separated from each other, it’s important to know how to break free from genjutsu alone.

“Releasing yourself from a genjutsu is harder since it requires great mental strength and great chakra control in order to create a chakra disruption large enough to offset the original. Ideally, this is what should be done when you don’t have anyone around to release yourself from the illusion. Y/N has been trained under genjutsu by Kana sensei for so long so naturally she was able to do this.

“Hinata, on the other hand, was able to break free from genjutsu through hurting herself. Triggering of pain works in dispelling a genjutsu, however, it’s not advisable to do so.”

You raised your hand to speak, effectively stopping Kurenai sensei from her words, “Aside from those methods, during our travels, I came across a village that uses Chilli Pepper Bombs in order to release themselves from genjutsu.”

Kurenai sensei placed a finger on her chin, thinking, “Ah, so triggering the sense of smell can also snap you out of the illusion?”

You nodded.

“I haven’t thought of that approach. I’m glad you brought it up. Maybe this can help Kiba in breaking out of a genjutsu given his powerful sense of smell,” Kurenai sensei said thoughtfully.

You shyly smiled at her statement, happy you could help them in any way you can.

“So I’ll be training you all more on how to counter genjutsu on top of the physical training that we usually do. As for Kiba’s punishment, he’s going to have to come here earlier tomorrow since he’ll have to do a different obstacle course. The rest of you, come here at the same time, okay?”

“Yes sensei,” all of you collectively said.

The difficulty of the day’s training was quickly catching up on everyone. So without saying anything more, everyone went home after Kurenai sensei had dismissed the group.

The rest of your night and the morning after proceeded similarly like the day before, except you arrived earlier at the hospital.

You weren’t expecting to see Sakura there at such an early hour but there she was, looking tired but there was determination in her eyes. You smiled at her and went to her side. You were just about to greet her when another voice calls both of your attention.

Lady Tsunade.

Both of you bowed and greeted her and her assistant Shizune politely.

“Sakura told me that you came here to help yesterday and reported that you did a great job here,” the Hokage said.

“Yes, Lady Hokage, I dropped by before I had to train with Team Kurenai.”

She gave a nod then looked at Shizune and Sakura. “Sakura, why don’t you help Shizune with these papers? Michiko, come with me.”

She didn’t wait for your answer and just walked briskly ahead.

You blinked a couple of times, not immediately understanding the situation. Lady Tsunade wanted you to come with her? For what?

Tsunade stopped walking and turned to you with a raised brow, “Well?”

You mumbled a quick apology and then ran up to catch up with her.

You realized too late that you shouldn’t have followed her. You should’ve just made up an excuse — anything, really, just to get away. But it was too late.

Lady Tsunade was very intimidating. Her eyes looked at you sharply and at first you felt like cowering away. She asked a lot of questions, all related to medical ninjutsu. Mostly about what to do in a situation, how to heal a certain type of wound, disease, or sickness, which medicine or healing jutsu should be used. The answers rolled off your tongue as soon as she asked a question. You knew everything by heart, having been drilled at a young age by your mother. But the scrutinizing gaze that the Hokage gave you made you think twice about everything. She was far more terrifying than your mother, that’s for sure.

Now you aren’t clumsy at all, but you almost tripped on your feet when you answered one of her questions and she quickly snapped her head at your direction. She doesn’t comment on what you’ve said but that doesn’t soothe your nerves at all.

Then just when you thought she would finally let you go, she had you perform a minor surgery on a patient. For a moment you wanted to turn her down just because you still had to train with Team Kurenai and you weren’t sure how long the surgery was going to last, but the words got stuck in your throat when Tsunade tapped her feet impatiently with her arms crossed while awaiting your acceptance of the task.

The minor surgery ended up being not so minor at all. The damage on the patient was more extensive than you had expected.

Sure, you were confident with your skills, but it was unnerving to have an expert on the field watch you work. You were grateful Lady Tsunade wasn’t standing directly in front of you or even beside you as you operated, otherwise, you might’ve made countless mistakes already.

Nevertheless, you were able to finish it faster than the average time it takes to perform the operation. You cleaned off yourself as soon as you got out of the room and wiped the sweat that formed on your forehead. After a few moments alone, Tsunade rejoined you. That’s when the first smile appeared on Tsunade’s face.

“Kana taught you well,” she said. “Some of the approaches you mentioned a while ago were unconventional while some are believed to be practiced only in other villages, you must’ve learned those from your travels with your family, hm? It’s evident from your answers and your skills during the surgery that you have a thorough understanding about medical ninjutsu, even more so than medical nins your age.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

“If only you came here sooner, I would’ve personally taught you the Regeneration jutsu I came up with, but there’s not enough time,” she sighed.

You understood what she meant, at least partially, about not having enough time.  _ The Akatsuki _ . It was only a matter of time before the criminal organization would make their move. And although Lady Tsunade’s Regeneration Jutsu would’ve been a great technique to learn, it was far more important to improve your fighting skills.

Shizune then came up to the Hokage, Sakura trailing behind her, “Tsunade-sama, we should head back to your office. You still have other paperworks to sign and, uhm, Danzo has requested to see you.”

Fire ignited in Tsunade’s eyes. “Tell him I’m busy,” she snapped.

Shizune pulled Tsunade gently to the side to speak with her in a hushed manner.

You and Sakura both looked at each other, a look of question etched on your face. Sakura just shrugged.

When Shizune and Tsunade’s conversation was finished, Tsunade told you, “You should drop by here more often.” And with that, she walked away with Shizune to resume her duties as Hokage.

You released a sigh of relief once they were out of sight. Sakura giggled at your reaction. “Tough time?”

You frowned and nodded.

“Lady Tsunade gave me hell too. But I have to endure it to become better. She’s the best out there.”

This made you think how hard it must’ve been for your mother to be taught by such a strict mentor. You’re pretty sure Tsunade wasn’t the type to give anyone special treatment, even relatives.

Your thoughts were cut off when Hinata, Kiba, and Shino entered the hospital. Shino was supporting Kiba, the latter was clutching his chest, clearly in pain.

“What happened?” Sakura asked as both of you came to the injured man and led him to a bed. Blood was seeping through his clothes. You found out that there was a wound under his rib. 

“We came to cheer for Kiba as he did his punishment but this happened,” Hinata answered worriedly.

“I’ll grab some bandages,” Sakura said.

“Okay,” you nodded, “I’ll handle this then.”

You immediately went to heal Kiba’s wound. As you were focusing on your chakra flow, Kiba groaned, seemingly wanting to do or say something.

“What’s wrong? Is there any other part of you that needs to be healed?” You asked.

His wound didn’t pierce through any major organ, but it  _ could have _ . The wound was extremely close to his lungs and if he wasn’t lucky, the kunai or whatever it was that caused his cut would’ve punctured his lungs and  _ that’s _ fatal.

“The course, the obstacle course…” 

“Hm?”

“The one I had to finish was your obstacle course yesterday,” Kiba said in a pained tone.

This made you look up. But you didn’t speak, you didn’t know what to say.

“How did you— how did you do it?” He grunted.

“I, uhm, dodged most of the weapons thrown?” Your answer came out like a question because you weren’t sure if that was the answer he wanted. Kiba, Hinata and Shino looked like they were waiting for you to say more so you cleared your throat and said, “And deflected those I couldn’t dodge by using ninjutsu.”

“What? But there were so many traps! If you sidestep just a little bit, another one goes off. It was never ending.”

Hinata and Shino just watched as you and Kiba talked. They were trying to imagine what Kiba was trying to describe.

“Yeah, I barely had time to breathe at all."

“Yet you got away unscathed.”

You pursed your lip and remained silent. There was no point in denying it, you did get away without any wounds after all. Yet you felt like if you were to talk about it more, the more Kiba would feel like he wasn’t good enough because he wasn’t able to finish it, and you didn’t want him to feel bad at all.

You mentally recalled how you barely dodged a kunai that was aimed at your neck. You had to use the Flying Raijin technique three times in a span of  _ an hour _ just to evade the kunai and shuriken directed at you. It was a jutsu you try to limit to four or five uses _ a day  _ because it took a lot of chakra from you so having to use it that many times only halfway through the obstacle course worried you. The memory made you shiver and it made you realize how lacking you still are.

“You know, Kurenai sensei told us your obstacle course was the hardest one and that only jonin-level ninjas are capable of finishing it.”

You showed no reaction. Your mother told you that Jonins were highly skilled ninjas and left it at that. Even in your travels, you rarely came across them, much less watched them train or be in action.

_ So how skilled was highly skilled? _ You didn’t know.

“Aren’t you guys Jonins?” You tilt your head as you asked.

A blush had formed on Hinata’s face while Kiba grinned. For a moment you wondered if you said anything wrong.

“I’m flattered you think of me as skilled as a Jonin. But we’re actually Chunins,” Kiba said.

“Oh.” 

“Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time that the Hokage sees my potential and promotes me as a Jonin and then I’ll be the next Hokage.”

Shino only shook his head while Hinata giggled. Then a snort was heard. You turned your heads and saw Sakura with the bandages.

“Oi what was that reaction?!”

“Nothing, nothing,” Sakura innocently replied as she started to put the bandage on Kiba’s injury. “Do you even think you’re at the same level as Neji?”

Kiba had gone off explaining why he should be a Jonin while ignoring Sakura’s question. Then he started proclaiming that he’ll be the next Hokage. Meanwhile, you blocked out his voice as you worked on helping Sakura. When you were both done, he immediately stood up.

“What are you doing?!” Sakura asked.

“Going back to training.”

Hinata looked at him worriedly. Sakura, on the other hand, was about to object, considering he was just treated for a wound he got from the obviously difficult training. Shino had kept his face blank so you had no idea what he was thinking about.

“Alright! Let’s go!” You exclaimed. 

Kiba didn’t miss a beat and was already by the door. Shino and Hinata looked at each other and then they followed suit.

Sakura just sighed, not expecting you to allow a patient to do such a thing so soon. But she relented, knowing that if you were there you’d be able to help any of them in case something happens.

Team Kurenai looked at you, waiting for you to join them. You grinned, said your bye to Sakura, and then made your way to the group.

By the time you all got out of the hospital, Kiba suddenly yelled, “Yosh! Let’s go train harder!” as he raised up one fist.

Since no one else was around Hinata and Shino showed no reluctance in raising their fists as well and shouting, “Yes!”

One thing was running through your mind as you smiled at the group’s antics: Training with Team Kurenai was definitely going to be interesting.

  
  



End file.
